Tax offices chasing Uber drivers. Almost 50 000 PLN to pay back

How Swedish tax authorities started chasing Uber drivers

In 2016, Swedish tax offices began looking into Uber drivers income. Back then working through apps was a very new thing, and so tax offices were lacking proper tools to look into people’s income from such work.

Uber did not make it easy for Swedish tax authorities, as all drivers' earnings were back then transferred through Uber’s branch in the Netherlands (where Uber has its European headquarters), meaning they were out of Swedish tax offices' reach.

In the end however, Uber has submitted its drivers income information to Swedish offices. The files included data for all drivers who were working with Uber in 2015. It was sent during Spring 2016. Half a year later, cases started to pop up.

Almost 50 000 PLN tax to be paid back by the record owner in Sweden 🇸🇪

In August 2016, Swedish newspapers started to report that over 50 people were so far charged with unpaid taxes. A record back tax was 114 000 Swedish Kronas, which is about 46 000 PLN. That person reported a total Uber income of just 4700 SEK (2000 PLN), but as it turned out did over 4000 trips in that time.

Source: expressen.se

Over 9 000 PLN per person of tax payback charged in Sweden 🇸🇪

In December 2016, over 600 people were already charged with unpaid taxes. The total value of back tax reached more than 12.5 million SEK (5 million PLN), meaning that on average every driver was to pay back over 9000 PLN. At least 60 people have also been fined for driving without a driver's license or taxi license.

Source: transportarbetaren.se

An average of almost 6 000 PLN per driver charged in Denmark 🇩🇰

2 years later, in 2018, a similar case was ran in Denmark. Danish tax offices also had a hard time digging to the bottom of driver’s income, but in the end they also received information from Dutch authorities. They’ve started checking driver’s income for 2014 & 2015.

They’ve reported that out of 1195 checked Uber drivers, a total of 1192 had to pay taxes back - meaning only 3 declared them properly!

The final amount to pay back was set at 11,3 million Danish Krones, which is almost 7 million PLN. It means that the average amount of taxes to pay back per person was about 5800 PLN.

Sources:
- reuters.com
- independent.co.uk

Why did tax authorities chase Uber drivers, and why after such a long time?

Both Swedish & Danish authorities said that the checks were done to provide equal competition rules. If “classic” taxi drivers are paying taxes to the full while Uber drivers are not, it’s not a fair game. That’s the official part.

Less official part that we have to accept is that the government will always look for additional sources of tax revenue. For Sweden and Denmark, it took a few years to get there because Uber HQ was located in the Netherlands, and so tax authorities from other countries had a hard time getting to drivers’ earnings files.

Today, due to the European Union’s DAC7 directive, that obstacle is fully gone!

What is DAC7 and why should you care?

The DAC7 directive is a set of laws imposed by the European Union, aimed to reduce tax evasion on digital platforms (internet & mobile) - including Uber, Glovo, Bolt, and other gig apps used by drivers and couriers to earn money.

Such platforms will now have to report the identities & earnings of their drivers and couriers directly to tax offices. And that is for the whole 2023!

➡️ You should care because back tax threat is real, as it happened before in Sweden and Denmark. Now with DAC7 in place, tax authorities in other EU countries have everything they need to do the same much faster.

How can Appjobs Work help you overcome DAC7 dangers?

By becoming your partner of choice! 🙂

We are fully tax compliant since when we became a partner. After talks with a lot of lawyers, we’ve identified 5 main areas of tax evasion commonly used in Poland, which unfortunately became a standard in recent years. Read more about it HERE.

We intend to change it. Safety of our drivers & couriers was always our #1 priority and we’re confident to say that our offer is absolutely legal and will never be considered tax evasion.

We’re happy to explain more and answer your questions at [email protected].