Uber May Have Stolen Over $200 Million From NYC Drivers

Last month, I wrote about Uber ripping off its drivers in New York City by forcing them to pay the sales tax out of their commissions, rather than having the passenger bear that cost. While determining who exactly pays the sales tax can be somewhat opaque, there were a number of indications that drivers in New York were clearly treated differently by Uber than elsewhere. In addition, Uber's explanation of how those sales taxes were being paid has changed over time as has its contract with New York drivers, seemingly in order to account for the sales tax issue.

The NY Times has followed up this story with a detailed examination of the sales tax issue and it presents pretty clear evidence showing that Uber was treating the New York drivers far differently than everywhere else where the sales tax was clearly marked as an additional cost to the passenger, separate from the driver's commission. In addition, the article calculates that Uber may have stolen as much as $200 million from drivers in this scam, based on a conservative estimate of an average fare of $15.

Despite stealing millions from its drivers and despite illegally avoiding regulatory oversight, Uber continues to hemorrhage billions of dollars in losses each year, all in the hopes of driving its taxi competitors out of business and creating a monopoly for itself in certain markets. As I've said many times before, Uber really is a criminal organization and it needs to be shut down.