As per news article below, taxi owners are launching a class action in Victoria against Uber saying it has cost them $500m in lost revenue. Crazy to think just how badly we were getting ripped off before Uber arrived.
https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/taxi-drivers-…
Most of drivers used to earn $150k before Uber came and just did around $30k in tax return. Majority of payment is in cash so I will be laughing when someone say they are low income earners.
Evidence- I know at least 10 acquaintances who used to do it.
Ah well, there are still jobs for them at 7-Eleven, Subway and Oporto.
@i0k-0RU2zd10c: My point was that there are other late night, low skilled jobs for them to do.
The taxi industry delivered crappy service at rip-off prices, so good riddance to them.
@Windows98: I haven't caught a taxi for a while. Doing so represents a major error in transport planning. I've only ever been in one at the insistence of others. And sometimes I've bailed when they jumped in.
But from what I can remember, all the drivers were middle-aged. So not young medical students.
@SydStrand: While we wait for your blood pressure, can I interest you in some chocolate bars? If you buy two, you get one free!
@Scrooge McDuck: It's hilarious that you don't think Uber will be doing the same and more once they have the market locked down. As is I got back on a flight the other week late on a Friday, and the Uber estimate for a fare was 1.5x what the Taxi cost. So it was Uber to the airport and a Taxi back (to save me from the rip off Uber pricing).
@[Deactivated]: But isn't that kind of scenario anomalous?
I don't recall saying anything about Uber in this thread. But given what a steaming shit the taxi industry is, they have a lot of headroom to be better.
@Scrooge McDuck: The thread about Uber being sued kinds of makes them part of the topic.
I rarely catch either. It's great Uber has pushed them to become better but in my experience they're basically the same except Uber is cheaper off peak and Taxi's are cheaper in peak. I've caught Uber about 10x and tried to take it another 10 but the surge pricing made it not worth it. So IMO it's not really anomalous, it's any time they're a little busy which is probably when most trips by volume occur. To be frank it really has to be frequent or no one with any basic maths skills would drive for Uber because if you run the numbers and include expenses, it's less than minimum wage.
In any case, soon enough they'll all be automated out of jobs.
It's hilarious that you don't think Uber will be doing the same and more once they have the market locked down.
This is a complete strawman. The taxi industry was literally a government mandated monopoly. Uber already has more competition other than taxis than taxis have ever had. There are no signs Uber is heading towards even profitability, much less any kind of monopoly.
@HighAndDry: Fair point if we're talking historically. The monopoly was definitely an inefficient market, the price of taxi plates would have been the most obvious sign of that (I went to school with someone whose parents had a heap of money from a dozen taxi plates and they never drove a taxi a day in their lives).
In Australia I don't think Uber's competition other than Taxi's is materially significant though. I've not met anyone that's caught anything other than an Uber or a Taxi. Having at least both options has been helpful for me, given I've just taken the cheapest at any point.
Essentially pre-Uber the system was 1) Government gets money 2) Taxi drivers earn a living wage because they're busy all the time 3) People get a bit screwed with availability during busy times due to the artificial cap on drivers. Uber etc are going to be exceptional at reversing all three of those with the money going offshore, drivers earning next to nothing, plenty of rides available for everyone, as long as you are willing to pay 2-3x as much in the busy times.
Essentially pre-Uber the system was
I feel like you're leaving out:
As to Uber reversing the three points you mentioned, even that's not right. The government gets money, from tax payers. It's not as if those costs are being borne by taxi drivers and not passed on. Taxi drivers can earn a wage depending on the services they provide - they have no entitlement, just as no one else has, to inflate their earnings through artificial scarcity, and not much of this money is going overseas - Uber is basically still running a loss or barely breaking even.
Oh and as for busy times? Better to have the option of paying more, than not having a ride at all.
It looks like all taxi drivers are negging me. LOL
Truth is bitter.
I totally agree with you. You are spot on. I know another 20 taxi drivers not paying tax and laughing. Not sure why Govt. has allowed them to rort system for so long.
@amsaini15: And do you think behaviour like this is ethical?
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/uber-airbnb-reve…
https://mobile.abc.net.au/news/2018-03-06/uber-x-drivers-wor…
https://www.smh.com.au/business/the-economy/uber-pays-just-o…
http://theconversation.com/explainer-how-uber-and-airbnb-are…
http://uk.businessinsider.com/uber-exploits-vat-loophole-to-…
@arcticmonkey: The current Gig economy will bite us in the ass. Lots of them don't make enough money and need Government support to get by. Super annuation for self employed ABN holders is voluntarily, many won't have much when they retire.
I do use Uber, Airbnb etc. but it looks to me the average taxpayer is supporting some tax evading multinational exploiting his subcontractors. I'll be very surprised it this experiment ends well.
@Repi: It's fully voluntary, so I don't see any "exploitation" happening. These people would be on other low income jobs (and also get govt support) so I see no difference - at least this gives them some income rather than none.
@HighAndDry: 'Voluntary' and 'exploitation' are not opposites. Its a common mistake to think that one cannot follow the other. It is entirely possible to enter into an exploitative arrangement of your own free will if you believe that to be the best option at the time.
@outlander: "Voluntary" is easy to define. Give me a definition of "exploitative" that you're happy to work with, and I'll show either why it is the opposite, or why the definition is wrong.
@HighAndDry: Hard to define I'm afraid. Its based on the concept of 'fairness', which involves as many factors as you want it to. Its starts as a 50-50 distribution of pain and rewards, but the balance changes as more factors are considered which unequally effect one party more than the other.
'Voluntary' is easier to address. Doing something voluntarily, means doing it of your own free will. Free will is the freedom to choose. If you restrict the choices available, you can restrict the freedom, while still claiming to offer freedom and demanding people take responsibility for their choices. Its a very clever way to control people.. very clever
Hard to define I'm afraid.
Yeah, I guess what I'm really getting at, is that a voluntary, informed, decision that someone makes in their best interest, without pressure from the other transacting party, can't be exploitative. If it's not an informed decision, then again, so long as that isn't caused by the other party, it's still not "exploitative" in any way that I'd consider wrong.
For example here: If someone does their maths and works out that working for peanuts for Uber is still better, long term, than working another minimum wage job? Then to me that's a win-win proposition, irrespective of the fact that that person might be 'forced' into minimum wage jobs because of their life circumstances, so long as Uber didn't (wrongfully - e.g. they were a taxi driver) create those circumstances.
And I don't think other people's "subjective" ideas of what's fair or not should go into it. If the person's happy to enter into that arrangement, unless you're offering to give them a better gig, I don't think your opinion matters.
@outlander: It's so confusing to my brain to see someone talking ethically while representing themselves with an Imposter Professor Oak icon…. rofl
@Repi: Agreed.
Unfortunately there are a lot of uneducated or selfish people with a short term focus.
It explains why we have this do nothing conservative government in office.
@pingMarky: I did a project that involved flying Melbourne to Sydney at least once a week. Around one in 5 trips I had a taxi driver offer to not turn on the meter and do $50 cash for the ride home (screwing everyone involved).
At least with Uber I've never had a driver get lost (because they weren't the registered cab driver), tell me the trip is too short and drive off, come up with dodgy deals or smelled like they rented it out to hobos while not driving. I don't own a car so my Uber bill is a couple of k a year too - as a result I get a high number of "offers" in the app constantly keeping the price down.
And plenty of Uber drivers I talk to actually make decent money, last weekend I talked to a guy who gave up his job at a pub because he can pull far better money driving uber late on a Friday.
how many hours did they worked per week to achieve 150k ? 80 or 100+
FYI average uber drivers earning is $14/hour (my & friends experience)
We are discussing how they evaded tax. Number of working hours has nothing to do with it.
@Ash-Say: Yep, I second that. Before uber, they used to make upto 500-600 per day on average and that is why the taxi licenses were selling for astonishing price of 500k+. And everyone, that I knew, was showing 1500 per month earning to stay in poor people tab and getting all the benefits possible.
And to add more, their partners were working cash in hand - mostly.
I saw them having huge houses and some even have investment properties.
Wonder why government would not ask them how they got money for that? Well first send money overseas and later get that back here as gift.
Rant over.
Wonder why government would not ask them how they got money for that? Well first send money overseas and later get that back here as gift.
Thats genious!
@Ash SA: I know plenty of people that owned taxi plates with huge houses and investment properties, and they never drove a taxi a day in their lives. The people working for them weren't making much because it went to the owners, but probably more than they would now for Uber.
@[Deactivated]: True in a sense
But still the drivers were making a killing at times mate and don't discount NO TAX at all strategies.
We are against no one but people must be honest at some level.
I have seen people coming on a student visa JUST to drive taxi here so as to save as much as they can before going back.
@Ash SA: Honestly even at full meter fare, with no tax, they couldn't have made a huge amount if you include fuel and wear and tear on the vehicle, payments to the taxi plate owner etc. There are plenty of other countries where our minimum wage is enormous compared to what they could make at home.
I think people are really exaggerating here.
@[Deactivated]: Can you tell me a person who can buy a 500k house with minimum wage? I heavily doubt. And some cool car…well carS..and some investment properties ? I am not sure why you think it is exaggregated.
Again, No one is belittleing their efforts or against them buying stuff.. but this whole thing where they say they can't earn much with taxi and then complaining about loosing 100k's bcos of uber is just a shiistory
@Ash SA: It's the taxi plates that were worth the money, the government made them scarce which drove up the price, then legalised Uber (which started illegally) and wiped out the value.
I imagine they probably bought a $40k house then waited 30 years and it became a $500k house…. You're just making up stories now. I know people will million dollar houses from taxis, but they weren't the ones doing the driving, they paid people minimum wage and made all the money because there was an enforced lack of competition. Meanwhile, someone driving a car has never been a job that makes very much, unless you work 100 hours a week or somewhere really remotely.
Minimum wage x 100 hours a week is actually not half bad, you could buy a $500k house on that without any trouble. People are also bad with debt, so many people appear to have so much money but it's all owed to the bank, they don't actually have the cash. You can see it in this case, people borrowed money to buy the taxi plate, then had them devalued massively, now they just have the debt. While ultimately I think monopolies are a bad idea, you have to see it from both sides. If the government is going to sell monopolies, people are going to be upset when they get vaporised overnight. Imagine you had your house you paid $500k for acquired by the government for a fraction of that?
@[Deactivated]: Missed the point- FFS pay the tax regardless your hourly rate. Some MFs evade tax, lie about their income, claim benefits and buy properties.
You know some honest taxi drivers - good for you. I know a bunch of baddies - i explained.
Don't accuse me of making up stories. You don't know me neither are you a fkn expert of subject. So take a back seat and stop punching keys.
Well, no one asked them to buy plates. And all those driver who failed taxi driver test, moved to drive uber. Just saying.
@Ash-Say: revenue and earning not same. 150k revenue can turn to 50k income if they have good accountant it doesn't mean evaded tax. if taxi meter was tamper proof its more like utilising tax loophole
150k revenue can turn to 50k income
As a taxi driver? Not on your life. No way. And com'on, you've never had one ask for cash, or have a broken meter, etc?
@HighAndDry: not a taxi driver and i am not sure about 150k avg annual turnover . most people working on ABN think revenue is earning they fail to account related expenses.
@mohan76: I can understand that - I'm more doubting that a taxi driver has expenses accounting for 2/3 of their take. But then, I also don't know how greedy the medallion owners are.
@HighAndDry: Think about it, Uber are taking 30% and they're able to be cheaper than Taxi's. Why do you think they're cheaper? They're taking a smaller cut and pushing the expenses to the driver.
Drivers that didn't own plates were basically paid minimum wage because they were easily replaceable with other low-skilled labour. Think about it. People arriving on student visas with limited ability to work, it's a story older than 7-11.
@[Deactivated]: Sorry I must need more coffee - I can't see how that relates to a taxi driver's expenses, which is I think what the thread was about. I know Uber drivers have a lot of expenses - they're independent contractors and their revenue is really after Uber's cut. Taxi drivers either own their taxi and medallion (and so get 100% of all fares as revenue), or are just min. wage drivers like you say, but also share in none of the major expenses.
$14 per hour minus fuel, expenses and wear and tear on their car?
So these acquaintances are ripping you off and you did nothing about it? They are massively underpaying income tax which means you have to pay more to cover for their crime.
What was he supposed to do? Write them a strongly worded letter? How well do you think that would have worked?
@HighAndDry: IMO, It's a hard ask for your typical Australian to make the choice between 1 guy, and supporting the 'Tax Man'.
@MasterScythe: Oh yeah definitely. On the one hand, someone rorting the govt and basically raising taxes on the rest of us to pay for everything. On the other hand…. ATO.
@HighAndDry: Yup. I mean, as the 'victim' in this, I'd prefer to pay an extra $5 for him :P
But I'm sure my opinion will sway depending on how rich or 'f you government' i'm feeling on the day, lol
There's a truly ignorant response here from someone purely thinking of their own pocket.
For taxi drivers to earn $150k, they would have had to put in over 12 hours per day & would've owned the plate which cost over $400k each. Drivers that worked for a company earned much, much less. To put it into context you'd understand, it's like a coffee shop owner who shouldn't earn too much because his cost is only 5c & they sell their coffees for $3-4 each. There are running costs involved such as petrol, vehicle maintenance, tolls, government taxes, state fees etc. Educate yourself, those people you're talking about who earned over $150k were small business owners who have/had mortgages tied to their businesses & families to feed.
There are cases where of these people have commuted suicide due to the massive debt they found themselves in after that bill was passed by the state government. Government reform stole their livelihood & all you can talk about is the $5 saving you're getting from Uber, a multinational conglomerate where the profits go overseas mind you. (Sorry about the rant)
& all you can talk about is the $5 saving you're getting from Uber, a multinational conglomerate where the profits go overseas mind you. (Sorry about the rant)
For the sort of people who are often Ubering (can't afford city parking or perhaps a car?) that $5 could be significant.
@MasterScythe: lol. Yep, people like myself with a $2k smartphone. Totally significant.
The sort of people for whom $5 for a taxis is significant get subsidised taxi travel (Govt pays half) and need it to go to the doctor. Not to come home from a night out on the piss.
The others take a bus.
Umm no, the people didn't save $500m, they spent a proportion of that on uber…
But nice sensationalist post
Especially not! That's child exploitation material.
$500M in savings? Lol
https://www.news.com.au/national/victoria/news/taxi-drivers-…
taxi licenses drop to just $55, a significant decrease from its peak price of $500,000
The deal saw the number of registered taxis on the road go from 5600 to 10,500.
So Uber set up shop here and helped 5000 Victorians to get a job. They made it more affordable for Australians travel in the process. Good on them.
below minimum wage jobs. the uber drivers are just pawns in uber's long-term goals
Taxi driver were getting minimum wage while the licensees got fat doing nothing but counting the money.
The cost of getting a license is now much more affordable. More people may now drive and share some of the money.
Yep the drivers are just lemmings, every customer they pick up is a step towards Uber funding automated cars.
It can't be bargained with. It can't be reasoned with. It doesn't feel pity, or remorse, or fear. And it absolutely will not stop, ever, until you are home.
@i0k-0RU2zd10c: "ah, euthenasia day at the geriatric hospital" - Frankenstein, Deathrace 2000, before he swerves behind the bushes and mows down all the nursing staff because he loves a bit of irony.
@i0k-0RU2zd10c: Gonna call BS on this. Not only is either outcome a collision, ie not evasive, but my 90yo grannie is about the same size as a 14yo kid. Just how's a computer to determine the age of an object from a distance at speed? Scan for Dr Dre's or barley sugars?
Car manufacturers have built an algorithm to evade the young in sacrifice of the old,
because the young has so much more to look forward to in life.
as opposed to a human who would likely panic and hit them both ;)
but no, thats not how they would design the control algorithms… its a nice ethics thought experiment, but its not like theres a branch in their code saying
IF Crashing THEN
If Collision1.age < Collision2.age THEN
etc etc etc
@SBOB: maybe not normal programming.
but if they put AI in it, it will compare between those two. And if collision one will kill one person and collision two will kill two persons, it will probably choose collision one.
And this will lead to Skynet
@i0k-0RU2zd10c: Did you seriously just confuse the twist from the I, Robot movie with real life? You think a 2018 car is smart enough to differentiate a grannie from a child?
@SydStrand: I'd rather trust a car's algorithm to avoid as many deaths as possible, as opposed to a human driver who can't make life-or-death decisions like that in a split-second moment.
Uber eats drivers are even worse off lol
I believe some Uber drivers refer to themselves or their colleagues as 'ants'.
TIL Uber Ants, roaches, surge snipers and dung beatles exist
It's their choice to work a job that pays below minimum wage. What's the problem?
helped 5000 Victorians to get a job
… where they earned less than minimum wage.
Which means they should be collecting welfare if they're econonmically rational (don't worry, no one is) and you as a tax payer will be supplementing their income thereby meaning you subsidise Uber earning billions while it breaks the law.
We prefer to see the 5000 Victorians behind the wheels servicing the public than in a queue at centerline.
It's a poor and uneducated analysis like that which helps explain why wages aren't rising.
you're right. uneducated workers are generally poorly paid. a good and easy way to increase ones income is to get an education or industry qualifications. completing short courses, seminars, tickets, etc may help.
The taxi cartels in Australia had good run while it lasted. It’s time for them to accept that their business model is obsolete and move on.
Agree.
In Perth they were woeful.
The amount of times I'd flag a cab down and they would wind their window down, ask where I was going, and if it wasn't to their liking, they would drive off.
When you were "lucky" enough to actually get a cab, they were filthy, stinky awful vehicles.
I feel little sadness for people who pumped stacks of their money into a business model that was bound to get shaken up.
Where do you live lol
I actually agree with micksimpson, and share similar experiences. This is in Sydney, Perth and Melbourne.
There is very little holding the cabbie accountable which is why they can behave however they want. Moreover, the level of cleanliness between a cab and Uber is miles apart.
Time to sue my competitor for competing.
Good point.
Dick Smith should sue Aldi
Dick Smith should sue Kogan
Dick Smith should sue Tandy
he probably uses Kogan prepaid
next he will sell fake poppies outside Aldi stores
I'm a huge fan of Uber (haven't caught a taxi is years), Uber weekly.. but…
this case is about them competing ILLEGALLY.
No one has an issue with legal competition, not even the scummy taxi industry.
i seriously doubt taxi driving ever was a high income profession