If the good or service is being provided by a non-taxi contractor who makes less than 30k a year, then you don't have to collect the GST and the tax doesn't cover that.
If the good or service is being provided by Uber, a non-contractor who makes over 30k a year, then you have to pay the tax.
What we're debating here is who provides the service and their legal status.
There's a certain amount of circular reasoning inherent here, because a government ministry made a declaration. It's not just an objective observation of reality, it's a declaration of what that reality will be henceforth.
Was it a good decision? In my opinion yes, because it better reflects the original intent of this particular tax. Anyone trading on the brand-name of "Uber" and using Uber's infrastructure is not a small supplier (who has to build and market their own brand and build their own infrastructure). And they are clearly supplying a good or service, which was my point expressed in embryonic form above, so they can go ahead and collect the tax.
My point is that Uber did not have to pay taxes, and their obligation to collect taxes was unclear. Under the new law they have the collect taxes. Under the old law, it was plausible that they didn't.
The main takeaway is that most aspects of the legal system, including definitions for commonly accepted terms, are not actually clear.
Especially your argument on intents of taxes. I don't believe that brand-name and infrastructure alone make an employee out of an independent contractor. Also, based on your brandname and infrastructure arguement, should people who sell handicrafts on Etsy or Amazon be classified as employees of Amazon and be forced to pay GST on all sales?
Also, they wouldn't pay GST; they would collect it from customers and pass it on to the government.
The question is what entity provides the service? In name, it's Uber. Do you take a Joe Johnson? Or do you take an Uber?
The point of contact is Uber also. You contact Uber for a ride, not Joe Johnson.
What entity sets the price? What entity collects the money? Uber.
There are some differences with Amazon and Etsy, but in general I think for this purpose if you partner up with a big company, you are not necessarily a small supplier anymore.
Basically, the taxation law is unclear, because you could easily argue that the service is purchased in the United States, where the Uber servers and the internet connections are. In that case, we're talking about Uber not really being a Canadian company, just that it has subcontractors working in Canada, making it exempt from taxes.
It seems like a lot of people have already decided whether or not Uber should be paying taxes, and now are retroactively applying logic to justify their original decision.
I could support that view, as long as they then pay taxes on that income in the US. I don't personally like the idea of shifting the money like that; I think eliminating such tactics would do a lot to fix tax havens. But at the same time I also recognize it as a pretty common and typically legal tactic for tax purposes.
The EU, for instance, closed that hole with the law that VAT taxes will be paid based on the customer's location. If such a law existed in Canada, then Uber wouldn't be able to argue that the purchase was made in the US.
> It seems like a lot of people have already decided whether or not Uber should be paying taxes, and now are retroactively applying logic to justify their original decision.
I agree, though I hope you weren't applying that to me. I was taking Uber's view as a given, but to me it still seemed that taxes would be owed for services rendered. Just that it would be services rendered to the drivers, not to the riders.
