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Brazil's Biggest City Wants To Charge Fees For Uber Rides (engadget.com)
An anonymous reader sends word that Sao Paulo's city hall has proposed levying fees on Uber to operate in the city. Engadget reports: "Many cities try to limit or ban ridesharing services like Uber, but Sao Paulo is trying an uncommon strategy to keep the companies in check: skimming a little off the top. The major Brazilian city has proposed a requirement these services have to buy government credits to cover their distance traveled, with rates changing based on when and where the trip takes place. App makers would also have to support a service that picks up multiple passengers headed in the same direction, although that won't be hard when options like UberPool already exist."
And if Uber doesn't pay the fees, jail the executives.
-- Tigger warning: This post may contain tiggers! --
Many cities try to limit or ban ridesharing services like Uber, but Sao Paulo is trying an uncommon strategy to keep the companies in check: skimming a little off the top.
If you think that's uncommon, you must not know any governments.
How can I believe you when you tell me what I don't want to hear?
ridesharing services like Uber
What's being shared exactly? There is no sharing. People pay money for the services rendered by taxi companies like Uber.
So basically the city wants something like the medallion system, but one that benefits them directly instead of making it a piece of property to be traded.
Laws are rules for the court, but merely a bottom bar to hit for life. Think beyond laws in your actions always.
Incidentally, what's the difference between a tax and a fee?
Don't waste your vote! Vote for whoever you want, unless you live in a swing state it won't matter anyways
The guy is supposedly a left-wing one (from the Laborers' Party - "PT"). He's young and has been doing an unconventional government -- he installed a lot of bike lanes (ciclovias) in an attempt to make people use bikes, but we lack the culture to use them these days and São Paulo has a harsh relief -- in some places it could be negotiated with an electric bike, but these are costly and too irresistible for thieves.
All in all, I don't think he's the worse we had, but some people simply hate his party for the insanely expensive and numerous cases of corruption (although it seems he's not involved).
He also reduced our city max speed to 50kmph mostly everywhere (that's about 31mph). Mind you, this is an international tendence and we have such terrible traffic jams that make us go even slower. But people find such speed too slow. Again, from what I've read here and elsewhere going slower probably reduces jams. Then again Brazilians simply love to speed. One of the alleged advantages is a reduction in accidents.
Now, given this panorama, I guess he would allow Uber without any tax whatsoever. And this is what has happened till now.
But conventional taxi drivers would rather start a revolution than have that. There's been a lot of protests and I guess the mayor is trying to come up with some kind of compromise like "See, they're paying, too!" Oh, well...
Unfortunatelly things here in Brazil are not decided by logic, but by whoever pay higher bribes to politicians. In my city, Belo Horizonte (a big capital), there's a law project which completely bans apps like Uber. It has been approved and our hope now is that the ultra-corrupt mayor vetoes it. What's worrying about São Paulo's project will be the tax rate, since everything here is overtaxed. For example, while the crude oil barrel has dropped from US$ 100,00 to 40,00 in two years, the gas price has doubled. Due to no-taxes, Uber fares are approximately a third of taxi's, I wouldn't be surprised if government decides to charge something like 40% of Uber rides.
Not really. The taxes for passenger vehicles are based on the average distance you do in normal circumstances. If you operate your personal car as a commercial vehicle or taxi then you do a LOT more distance and pollute and break down roads accordingly. You also set up a number of risks therefore taxing the first responder and similar infrastructure harder.
That's why in the US at least, if you lease/rent/insure or take out a loan for a car you cannot operate it as a taxi. It also voids most extended warranties as they do not want to cover the maintenance for the 100,000km/year a taxi vehicle may do.
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In addition Uber (and taxis) helps support the entertainment and tourism industry
And every company helps support the economy at large.
No more corporate taxes for anyone, woooooooo.
there were no roads before the income tax? i could have sworn the USA had roads prior to the 1930s.....
have you seen my sig? there are many others like it but none that are the same
Yes, it's the fuel tax, aka a use tax or consumption tax. But this is not about consumption - it's about keeping another buggy-whip industry alive.
One very creepy business practice of Uber is to use the word "ridesharing" to pretend it is casual hitch-hiking of people already going in a direction instead of the taxi service done as piecework that it really is. There are political reasons for this falsehood to evade laws and fees, perhaps unjust laws and fees, but even if they are that is no reason for us to pretend that they are "ridesharing" instead of how it actually operates. Why should we be propagating PR bullshit instead of discussing it in terms of reality? It's like calling a mail order scam a religion.
there were no roads before the income tax? i could have sworn the USA had roads prior to the 1930s.....
While it did, they were so shit that driving cross-country was an epic.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
If you operate your personal car as a commercial vehicle or taxi then you do a LOT more distance and pollute and break down roads accordingly.
Bullshit. Virtually all road damage is done by heavy trucks, or by nature (weather, tree roots, inadequate road beds) and practically none of it is done by passenger vehicles. The only time passenger vehicles cause perceptible damage is when they hit a pothole, but they don't make potholes. Inadequate road beds do that. Tree roots and animals in the inadequate road beds do that. If you think cars are damaging a road, what's actually happening is that you paid for a shitty road. You were robbed by your city, which probably knowingly paid for inferior roads while someone got a kickback.
You also set up a number of risks therefore taxing the first responder and similar infrastructure harder.
But that's true whether you collect money or not. By that logic, anyone who transports passengers and drives a lot of miles should have to pay more. It should not matter whether they are collecting money for the privilege.
It also voids most extended warranties as they do not want to cover the maintenance for the 100,000km/year a taxi vehicle may do.
Warranties already run out in a number of years or units of distance, whichever is shorter. Just like all the other "problems" which are allegedly "caused" by taxi service in particular (which are actually caused more by people driving themselves) this is another non-problem that is already covered by existing systems, and nothing special need be done for hire vehicles.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
"City Government in South American Country Wants a Piece of The Action"? So they're saying everything is working as usual in Brazil?
Appended to the end of comments you post. 120 chars.
Obviously not, there's nothing at all about that in the above post.
Who taught you that bad habit of using "You mean like" to put words in other people's mouths?