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Old June 1st 19, 10:25 AM posted to uk.transport.london
Recliner[_3_] Recliner[_3_] is offline
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Default Uber and the VAT man

Roland Perry wrote:
In messge k, at
16:26:38 on Thu, 30 May 2019, Tim Woodall
remarked:
Doesn't this hinge on whether uber are agent or principal?

Here's a related case that went all the way to the court of appeal.
https://www.kwm.com/en/uk/knowledge/...gents-20160101


That's saying MedHotels wasn't acting simply as a conduit for
orders/money but was doing much more, being a self-contained
holiday-business with payments to hotels being imply one of its
overheads.

I don't think the billing matters. If I appoint you as my agent to
collect monies due to me and agree to pay you 10% of whatever you
collect then your turnover is the 10% and mine is 100% regardless of
whether, and how, the 10% ends up in my account and the 90% ends up in
mine.


Yes, TheTrainline is acting as agent for the TOCs, and their turnover is
only the 10% [well, 8% actually].

TheTrainline isn't a tour operator, in the sense of buying lots of
London-Manchester Open Returns off Virgin, and then hoping customers
will turn up and buy them. It's just a real-time conduit for orders.

Similarly, Uber doesn't pre-buy driver-hours (or driver-miles) from the
cabbies, and then hope it can sell them. It's just a real-time conduit
for orders.


And now there's another contender, prepared to make even bigger losses in
the quest for market sha
https://www.thetimes.co.uk/article/rival-app-kapten-aims-to-drive-uber-off-the-road-as-cab-price-war-begins-ql50hf2d3?shareToken=ae520e4dc8d61cbc54da17360bf58 ba6

This story mentions that Uber now takes a 35% commission from new drivers.