Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 17:00:44 on Tue, 21
May 2019, JNugent remarked:

With Uber (which I have used only twice, neither time in the UK),
the charges are payable to Uber. If UK VAT applies to their charges
in the UK, it will have to be paid to Uber, presumably at 20% of the
charge. How Uber divide up the charge (ex-VAT) is up to them, but
all of it will be liable to the tax if any of it is.

The theory is that with taxi drivers below the £85k VAT limit, they
can't charge their riders VAT.

That's taxi-driving for you.

With Uber, the charge is not paid to the driver (and the drivers are
not taxi-drivers just as the cars are not taxis). The rider's sole
contract is with Uber itself.

Unless Uber is an agency and you are booking with the successfully
bidding driver, and as part of the agency agreement Uber pass your money
to them. Separately charging the driver a commission.

These arguments usually come down to how much independence the supposedly
self-employed drivers have, and the answer usually is, "very little". Uber
enforces standards, which of course helps the customers, but means that the
drivers have very little freedom. For example, you talked about
"successfully bidding drivers", which suggests that they have the right to
set their own prices, but they don't.