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New Jersey Claims Uber Owes $650 Million in Taxes and Fees; Drivers are Employees, Not Contractors

posted by martyb on Friday November 15 2019, @09:20PM   Printer-friendly
from the get-to-refile-four-years-of-state-and-federal-taxes,-too dept.

Arthur T Knackerbracket has found the following story:

New Jersey is the latest state to say Uber's drivers should be classified as employees rather than independent contractors. The state's labor department said that because of this misclassification, the ride-hailing company owes it roughly $650 million in unemployment taxes and disability insurance, according to Bloomberg Law.

The labor department reportedly has been trying to get unpaid employment taxes from Uber going back as far as 2015, according to documents obtained by Bloomberg Law. It said the company owed the state $523 million in overdue taxes along with another $119 million in interest and penalties for the last four years. Uber disputes these findings.

"We are challenging this preliminary but incorrect determination," an Uber spokesman said in an email. "Because drivers are independent contractors in New Jersey and elsewhere."

Driver classification is an issue that government regulators have been taking a closer look at over the past year. California passed a law in September that could require Uber and other on-demand companies to reclassify their drivers as employees instead of independent contractors. The law is set to go into effect Jan. 1. New York, Oregon and Washington state have considered similar legislation.

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  • (Score: 1) by khallow on Sunday November 17 2019, @05:22AM

    by khallow (3766) Subscriber Badge on Sunday November 17 2019, @05:22AM (#921188) Journal

    You conveniently ignored that Uber AND Lyft drivers have no control over pricing.

    Sure, they do. They don't need to turn out.

    All independent contractors, that are not abused employees, have control over the prices of their products and/or services. [...] The moment the driver has the ability to bid for

    Which is the case here. The driver has the ability to bid for work. And they can just ignore work that's too low priced.

    The competitor thing is bullshit. I know people who work one shift at Burger King, and then another one at Carl's Jr. That kind of exclusivity is rarely found outside of salaried positions.

    And those people can get fired from one of those jobs, if they don't show up to work because they're working the other job instead.