# GST Surprise



## Jobless Broke (Jul 1, 2017)

Hi Uberall, 
Has anyone noticed that Uber is taking a portion of your GST. The GST is calculated on the fare that the rider pays. I had my GST done by H&R Block and they did not pick it up. I contacted the ATO with a complaint about my GST payments because I noticed that Uber as taking a portion of it for themselves. The ATO confirmed my figures that Uber was taking a portion of the GST. This is how they do it....They make a 75%(Yours) - 25% (Theirs) split on the fare paid by the Driver. This fare includes the GST. I contacted Uber on this issue and they admitted to taking the GST. Our contract states that we are responsible for paying all taxes but is it fair if they are taking a portion of the GST. What should happen is that we get 10% of the fare as GST which then goes to the ATO. Then they should make the 75%-25% split on the balance. Has anyone else picked this up and what can be done about it. I mean fair is fair. Our situation is bad as it is. The formulae currently use is.....(100%-25%)=75% (Your Payment) you then have to pay GST on the 100% collected. 
(100% x 10%)=GST. Below is and example with real money figures.

This is how it currently works.
Your rider pays $100.00 (I have had one of those, lucky me)
You get $75 and Uber gets $25.00. You then have to pay the ATO $100 x 10% = $10.00. Ok so far.
($75 - $10) = $65.00 (Your Share)

This is how it normally works in any other businesses.
You pay the ATO 10% of the $100.00 then you calculate your share.
($100-$10) = $90
$90.00 x 75% = $67.50 Uber gets $90 x 25% = $22.50
Notice how Uber is pocketing an extra $2.50 on every $100 dollars that you earn. Over a year of driving lets say you earned $30,000.00. You will have paid $750.00 on behalf of your riders. Yes, thats right, your rider should be paying the GST, not you. With the thousands of drivers all over the country this figure really adds up to a staggering amount of your hard earned dollars. I know how hard it is because I drive and I drive and I drive earning peanuts per hour. There are approximately 30,000 Uber drivers in Australia. Uber is pocketing an estimated $22,500,000.00 of your hard earned GST every year. Go figure?


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## Jack Malarkey (Jan 11, 2016)

Yes, it's unfair that Uber charges its service fee against the GST component of the fare.


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## Amet80 (May 21, 2017)

It seems u pick it up too late


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## Paul Collins (Dec 12, 2016)

Ah, wrong. GST is 1/11 of the total fare, not a 10% calculation...

Corrected for you - This is how it currently works.
Your rider pays $100.00 (I have had one of those, lucky me)
You get $75 and Uber gets $25.00. You then have to pay the ATO $100 x 1/11 = $9.09


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## UberDriverAU (Nov 4, 2015)

Lol. If you had an $11 fare, which 100 cents of that fare is the GST? If you can identify which 25 of those 100 cents were stolen by Uber, you'll have a matter you can refer to the police.



Jobless Broke said:


> Yes, thats right, your rider should be paying the GST, not you.


Why should they when the law says you are the one who must pay? Personally, I'm not ok with paying taxes for someone else.


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## supersexy19 (Apr 8, 2017)

You must pay GST on 100% of the fare.The way Uber works on the $100 fare is you were paid $100 by the passenger,you are then required by Uber to pay them $25 commission. Ubers legal team and the ATO have already worked this out in a court of law.You have to remember the way Uber is set up, 100% of the money is yours, Uber then charge 25% for providing their services which include collecting and transferring the money etc. It may be wrong but thats the way it is.


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## alpacker (Sep 24, 2016)

Jobless Broke said:


> Hi Uberall,
> Has anyone noticed that Uber is taking a portion of your GST. The GST is calculated on the fare that the rider pays. I had my GST done by H&R Block and they did not pick it up. I contacted the ATO with a complaint about my GST payments because I noticed that Uber as taking a portion of it for themselves. The ATO confirmed my figures that Uber was taking a portion of the GST. This is how they do it....They make a 75%(Yours) - 25% (Theirs) split on the fare paid by the Driver. This fare includes the GST. I contacted Uber on this issue and they admitted to taking the GST. Our contract states that we are responsible for paying all taxes but is it fair if they are taking a portion of the GST. What should happen is that we get 10% of the fare as GST which then goes to the ATO. Then they should make the 75%-25% split on the balance. Has anyone else picked this up and what can be done about it. I mean fair is fair. Our situation is bad as it is. The formulae currently use is.....(100%-25%)=75% (Your Payment) you then have to pay GST on the 100% collected.
> (100% x 10%)=GST. Below is and example with real money figures.
> 
> ...


Your on the right track - Gst calc not quite correct

I ll use a ride at $110 for ease of calculation.

This is how it currently works:

Currently: Rider pays $110.00 ($100.00 + $10.00 GST)
Uber collects $110 x 25% = $27.50
Driver paid in account $110 x 75% = $82.50
Gst to collect for ATO $110/11 = $10.00
Leaves us with a net payment of $82.50 - $10.00 = $72.50
We actually receive only 72.5% of the fare 
Uber are taking 27.5% commission.

This is how it should be calculated

Currently: Rider pays $110.00 ($100.00 + $10.00 GST)

We pay the GST on the full charge - $10.00
Uber should only receive $100 x 25% = $25.00
Driver paid in account ($100 x 75% ) + GST = $75.00 + $10.00
Driver receives $85.00
Leaves us with a net payment of $85.00 - $10.00 = $75.00
We receive 75% of the fare 
Uber are taking 25% commission.

On a 75/25 split we lose 2.5% commission on every job 
In dollar terms that's $250.00 on every $10,000.00

On a 80/20 split we lose 2% commission on every job
In dollar terms that's $200.00 on every $10,000.00


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## Jobless Broke (Jul 1, 2017)

supersexy19 said:


> You must pay GST on 100% of the fare.The way Uber works on the $100 fare is you were paid $100 by the passenger,you are then required by Uber to pay them $25 commission. Ubers legal team and the ATO have already worked this out in a court of law.You have to remember the way Uber is set up, 100% of the money is yours, Uber then charge 25% for providing their services which include collecting and transferring the money etc. It may be wrong but thats the way it is.


Sooo? You do admit its wrong. If its wrong then it has to be fixed. If you have a leaky tap then it has to be fixed, if you are overcharged at a restaurant you don't accept it, you fix it. So I would like to see this fixed. If everyone has your attitude we would all be constantly ripped off. Uber makes millions of $$$$ by taking people like us for a RIDE. sic



alpacker said:


> Your on the right track - Gst calc not quite correct
> 
> I ll use a ride at $110 for ease of calculation.
> 
> ...


Yes I agree with you figures. Its a shame though that we allow this to happen. Non of the statement that I get from Uber show that GST was collected. So are they collecting GST? I had a rider some time ago that told me that he would not use Uber for business use as he was unable to claim the GST to offset GST he had collected in his business. Uber refused to give him a GST tax invoice. He paid his Uber account through his Paypal account. He had used Uber for a whole year totalling almost $1500.00. Surely he should have been entitled to claim the GST back. As no GST is shown on any statement, GST has not been collected. We are paying the GST on behalf of the rider. This certainly is not fair.



Paul Collins said:


> Ah, wrong. GST is 1/11 of the total fare, not a 10% calculation...
> 
> Corrected for you - This is how it currently works.
> Your rider pays $100.00 (I have had one of those, lucky me)
> You get $75 and Uber gets $25.00. You then have to pay the ATO $100 x 1/11 = $9.09


Yep! My calc is not right. Kudos for you. Fact remains their commission includes a portion of our GST. We are out of pocket. Customer/user always pay the GST and not the rider. If the GST was paid then it belongs to the ATO. Why would the ATO agree to Uber taking a portion of the GST and then turning around to claim the shortfall from us? Why is Uber the only industry where this is happening. Taxi drivers don't have this problem.



Jack Malarkey said:


> Yes, it's unfair that Uber charges its service fee against the GST component of the fare.


If its unfair, then its wrong. We have to fix it.



Amet80 said:


> It seems u pick it up too late


Nothing is ever too late. Its only too late if you do nothing about it.


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## Paul Collins (Dec 12, 2016)

Correct, in effect uber are taking a commission on the GST component.


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## Jack Malarkey (Jan 11, 2016)

Jobless Broke said:


> If its unfair, then its wrong. We have to fix it.


What do you have in mind to fix it?


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## Amet80 (May 21, 2017)

Jobless Broke said:


> Nothing is ever too late. Its only too late if you do nothing about it.


So what is plan? Uber not paying gst and gov saying its gotto paid by drivers. You sit in between uber coop and ato.


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## Solario528 (Jun 26, 2017)

Surprised you are only hearing about this now. There was a recent case in New York about this. Sorry, still unable to post link but if you google 'uber new york underpaying driver', you will see plenty of articles.


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## Dr. Pax (Jun 9, 2017)

alpacker said:


> Your on the right track - Gst calc not quite correct
> Currently: Rider pays $110.00 ($100.00 + $10.00 GST)
> Uber collects $110 x 25% = $27.50
> Driver paid in account $110 x 75% = $82.50
> ...


Actually... 
110/72.5 = 65.9% of the fare. 
ATO gets 9,09%
Uber gets 25%


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## BabyBoomer (Feb 28, 2017)

Dr. Pouf said:


> Actually...
> 110/72.5 = 65.9% of the fare.
> ATO gets 9,09%
> Uber gets 25%


Well Dr Pouf ...that depends whether or not you consider GST to be part of the fare. I think it is clear that because GST is a tax, it is not part of the fare.

In the example (which strangely uses the same fiqures that I quoted a few weeks ago) the fare is $100 and the GST (or goods & services tax) is $10.

This means that the 25% for Uber should equal $25 leaving $75 for the driver.

BUT IT DOES NOT! Why? ...because Uber take an additional 25% from the GST and this means that Uber take $25 PLUS $2.50 = $27.50, leaving only $72.50 for us bedraggled drivers.

The only interpretation of this scam that adopts your figures could surely only come from the sleight of hand of Uber themselves.

GST is TAX ....Uber have no right to take a commission on this tax.

When I have time I intend to seek legal advice on how best to challenge Uber on this -preferably via class action.

Cheers,

BB


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## snert (Sep 1, 2016)

So if we press Uber to exclude the GST from their commission then they will simply up the percentage to 27.5, same thing, same money,complete waste of time even thinking about it, if Uber want more money they just take it,end of story.
You pay the GST and and like it.


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## Edz (Jul 9, 2017)

Any chance we can put Uber 25% cut as expense with GST attached? This way we only pay our share (Gst on 75%). Surely Uber is GST registered.

Any thought?


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## BabyBoomer (Feb 28, 2017)

snert said:


> So if we press Uber to exclude the GST from their commission then they will simply up the percentage to 27.5, same thing, same money,complete waste of time even thinking about it, if Uber want more money they just take it,end of story.
> You pay the GST and and like it.


No Snert ...you are clearly missing the point old mate. If they want to charge 27.5% then go ahead and do it honestly and stop being such bare-faced farrrkeen liars! Then we can choose whether to drive or not.

As they are behaving in the aforementioned manner and stealing 2.5% (that clearly doesn't belong to them), our best course of action is a class action lawsuit. The longer they continue stealing, the more they will owe.

Cheers,

BB


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