On 31/05/2019 08:01, Roland Perry wrote:
In message , at 16:43:29 on Thu, 30
May 2019, JNugent remarked:
On 30/05/2019 15:41, Roland Perry wrote:


JNugent remarked:

Â*The turnover for someone like Uber or TheTrainline being the
commissionÂ* element, not including the money that passes straight
through to theÂ* drivers and Train Companies respectively.

If Uber only received a commission or circuit fee from the driver,
that would be correct and I would certainly not argue with your
proposition.

But how can that correct be in the circumstance where they also turn
over the whole of the fare collected from the passenger
(account-holder) on the spot?
Â*Do they, and send the driver an invoice for their commission later
(endÂ* of the month perhaps)?

I assume your "Do they..." was a request for confirmation of what I said.

I was asking for confirmation that they "turn over the whole fare
collected from the passenger, on the spot".

There's two aspects:

The whole fare, and
On the spot.

Yes, Uber do collect the whole of the fare.

No-one ever claimed otherwise. It's what they do after collecting it
which matters.

I don't know what form their subsequent internal accounting procedures
take, but if it were their practice to issue invoices to the driver, I
strongly suspect that we would have heard about that by now.

Therefore you are now agreeing with my proposition that they pay the
driver only part of what they collected from the passenger. Having
deducted their commission.

Not in the slightest.

They do pay an amount to the driver. Whether that is a fixed proportion
or a flat fee based on time or mileage is more than I know. I cannot
agree that Uber pay the whole of the fare less their (Uber's) commission
to the driver for the rather obvious reason that I do not know it to be
true.

Whether they pay it "on the spot", or perhaps 'at the end of the week'
or whatever, is peripheral to that particular aspect.

Is it? If you say so. I'm not convinced.

That would nudge them a bit closer to being perceived by the
passengerÂ* as a cab company, rather than a booking agent for the driver.

The passenger's view isn't important anyway, but even so, it's hard to
see how "knowing" that Uber issue invoices to drivers [if that were
the case, for which there is no evidence] would affect passengers'
opinion of Uber.

There are two models possible:

Â* Passenger pays for the ride and the whole fare is collected by Uber
Â* and sent to the driver (with Uber being in effect just a form of
Â* merchant services dealing with the card payment). Later, Uber sends a
Â* bill to the driver for his usage of their booking/billing platform.

Or,

Â* Passenger pays Uber for the ride, and they send him (maybe
Â* immediately, maybe later) a piecework payment for having done the
Â* driving aspect.

True enough. In either csae, Uber turns over the whole of the fare.

The perceptual difference being whether the passenger has just
patronised a self-employed driver, or a multi-billion cab company.

The only perception that matters is that of HMRC (and eventually,
perhaps, the courts).

TheTrainline, does the train company get paid for the ticket
straight away, or does TTL have 30day (or whatever) credit with them
all. Whatever the answer, their turnover in their published accounts
is just the commission/fee element.

But they are not Uber. And Uber are going to have to argue that the
money they turn over is not part of their turnover.

The two business models are very similar.

Not at all. Does Trainline get 100% of the turnover of the TOCs running
through its accounts?

Uber certainly gets 100% of its own turnover passing through its books.

Just to be clear about this: if an individual self-employed
taxi-driver (or private hire driver) turned over £85,000 and were
honest enough to report the fact, they would be forced by law to
register for VAT and to charge it on top of the fare.

But turning over £1808 a week (assuming five weeks' non-activity per
annum) would be a tall order. Not so for Uber.

Yes, I think we all understand why the £85k is important.

Uber have to collect and pay VAT (this is not automatically so for other
private hire drivers, proprietors or operators). The question is only
the quantum of their turnover.