Uber Canada Fights Back Against Tax Reassessment, Claims Drivers are Responsible for Sales Tax

Uber Canada is fighting back against a tax reassessment that the company says incorrectly assumes it’s responsible to account for sales tax on rides provided by its drivers.

A new report from the Financial Post explains that the Canadian branch of the ride-sharing service says it shouldn’t be responsible for the aforementioned taxes as it considers its drivers (who aren’t actually employees of the company) as individual contractors who are in fact supplying the rides.

“As an Uber partner, you’re an independent contractor,” the company says on its website. “When you work for yourself, you’re responsible to collect, remit, and file your sales tax — HST in Ontario, GST in Alberta — on all your ridesharing trips to the Canada Revenue Agency (CRA).”

Uber first filed the appeal with the Tax Court of Canada over the reassessments issued by the CRA in December of 2014, covering periods from October 2012 to June 2013.



Essentially, Uber claims it does not provide the ride services itself, only the platform in which its independent driving contractors operate through. During the aforementioned period of time, the company claims it was instead providing “marketing and support services.”

“It says it provided those services to its non-Canadian-based corporate owners, which automatically bill riders’ credit cards, collect fares on behalf of driver-partners, and then remit drivers the fares, minus fees for using the Uber app,” reads the report.

This marks yet another issue regarding Uber’s regulatory trouble in Canada. As Canadian Uber drivers pursue a class-action lawsuit to be recognized as employees rather than contractors, the Court of Appeal for Ontario has ruled that Uber drivers in the province should not be required to resolve employment issues through expensive arbitration in the Netherlands.