Latest news with #gigEconomy
Daily Mail
8 hours ago
- Business
- Daily Mail
Urgent warning to Aussies with a side hustle from UberEats delivery drivers to OnlyFans models
Australians working side hustle jobs are set to get a rude tax bill as the government cracks down on gig economy roles. The Australian Taxation Office is now directly contacting digital platforms to identify potential income taxpayers - meaning those with a side hustle can no longer hide. CPA Australia, which represents Certified Practising Accountants, warned the ATO's new sharing economy reporting regime was targeting everyone from social media influencers to food deliverers. Jenny Wong, the group's tax lead, said this meant Australians doing gig economy jobs with the likes of UberEats, DoorDash, Airtasker, YouTube and even OnlyFans risked a big tax bill if they failed to declare their income from these platforms. 'Until this year, individuals have been required to self-declare the income from their side-hustles,' she said. 'Now nothing will go under the radar. If you deliver food with DoorDash, work some casual jobs through Airtasker, or make content for Patreon, YouTube or OnlyFans, these sites are now reporting your earnings to the tax office. 'Though people might not consider earnings from digital platforms as income in the same way as their regular job, it is all viewed the same way by the ATO. 'Chances are that many people have simply not been declaring this income at tax time. That all changes now.' Ms Wong said the tax office was also targeting those who rented out items online. 'If you use a website to rent out a car parking space or your designer handbag, this income will be recorded, and you'll need to pay tax,' she said. The tax office's sharing economy reporting regime is expanding, meaning it will now be aware of all income earned from gig economy jobs in the 2024-25 financial year, above the $18,200 tax-free threshold. 'So, if you've had a successful year earning money through advertising revenue and streaming subscriptions, as well as through gifts and gratuities, the ATO will be expecting you to cough up,' she said. 'Yes, this even includes free cars, holidays, clothes and anything else you're lucky enough to receive as a form of payment. 'Depending on how much you've earned during the year, this could be a significant amount, maybe even tens of thousands of dollars.' What can be claimed on tax? Australian workers can claim items worth up to $300 in one financial year if they are used exclusively for work purposes, including a handbag used to carry a laptop computer and home office furniture. But H&R Block's director of tax communications Mark Chapman said these items had to be used to generate an income. 'Let's be clear: to claim items like bags or sunglasses, they must be used in the course of earning income; and if there's any personal use, only the work-related portion can be claimed. And as always, records are essential,' he said. 'Items of capital equipment (such as furniture, computers and associated hardware and software) which cost less than $300 can be written off in full immediately.' Australians working from home can claim 70 cents an hour on their tax, as a fixed rate claim method, provided they had proof since July 2024, in the form of diary entries, rosters or time sheets. Purchases made before June 30 can also be claimed as a tax deduction. 'With many retailers running end of financial year specials, any purchases you make now can be deducted in this year's tax return so from a cash flow point of view, you can minimise the time between purchase and tax deduction,' Mr Chapman said. What's the biggest misunderstanding about tax claims? Tax planning accountant Ben Johnston, a director of Johnston Advisory, said he had encountered many Australians during his three-decade career who thought the entire cost of a work-related item could be claimed on tax - because of those end of financial year sale campaigns on television. 'The benefits of tax deductions are so overstated where leading into the financial year - Officeworks, Dick Smith, Harvey Norman - all encouraging and really making people have urgency to spend money where it's actually really dumb to spend money to save tax,' he told Daily Mail Australia. 'Our tax system confuses and misleads people to spend money they don't need to just to save tax. 'A lot of people think they spend $10 on stationery and they get $10 back in tax when in fact they might be lucky to get $3.20 back. 'The notion of something being a hundred per cent tax deductible gets confused with being 100 per cent refundable and it's so false and retailers really prey on it.' Mr Johnston said he was frustrated by how many people didn't realise a tax claim simply reduced someone's taxable income. This led to them spending money falsely hoping to save money, even if it didn't necessarily put them into a lower marginal tax bracket. 'A refund's actually a false economy in a lot of ways - a lot of people don't understand that,' he said. 'Someone earning $200,000 a year - the most they get back out of that $10 is $4.70. 'If you're an apprentice, that hasn't worked a full year or only earned under $20,000, you spent $10, they get no money back because they don't pay tax. 'You only spend money on what you need for work - if you spend money incentivised for tax, then you're stupid; you're only getting a proportion of it back based on what your tax bracket is.'
The Guardian
a day ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Rough ride: how Uber quietly took more of your fare with its algorithm change
More than a decade after being one of 19 Uber drivers who took the company to court in 2015, Abdurzak Hadi continues to drive for – and fight with – the ride hailing app. The group won their claim confirming their entitlement to the legal minimum wage – but the Silicon Valley company's insistence that its drivers were self-employed contractors meant the case went all the way to the supreme court. In 2021, Hadi and friends won there too. If that sounds as if the British legal system left the former Somalian refugee in the driving seat, he argues that life for Uber workers is now as precarious as ever. On Thursday, academics at the University of Oxford – in conjunction with the non-profit gig worker organisation Worker Info Exchange (WIE) – launched a report analysing a mass of data relating to 1.5m trips provided by 258 UK Uber drivers, who had used privacy legislation to extract their personal data from the ride hailing app. The study gave a rare opportunity to study the workings of Uber's technology and produced some eye-catching findings. It found that many Uber drivers have earned 'substantially less' an hour since the ride hailing app introduced a 'dynamic pricing' algorithm in 2023, which is said to adjust trip prices in real time based on a number of factors. These include time, distance, the number of available drivers in the area, the passenger demand, traffic and the weather. The paper found that these earnings drops coincided with the company taking a significantly higher share of fares. The study unearthed further data suggesting that drivers such as Hadi are experiencing less and less control over their working lives. They described their days as being controlled by increasingly sophisticated pieces of computer code, which left them unclear how much Uber would take in fees on discrete jobs. '[The old system] was clear, transparent,' Hadi told the Guardian and ITV News. 'You can calculate, you can see. Say, for example here it says about eight miles, so I know eight miles plus how long it took me, plus the starting fare, minus Uber's fee, which is 20%. Even when they increased it to 25%, I would exactly know how much. Exactly.' The new system has resulted in Uber taking a variable cut, or 'take rate', of 29% of a fare on average, rising to more than 50% in some cases, the University of Oxford researchers found. The paper also found that Uber's take rate increased on higher value rides – something the company has denied. The 29% figure appears to chime with disclosures within Uber's latest quarterly results figures, which show that the company made $1.2bn of income from its operations (about £887m) in the first three months of this year. Meanwhile, the WIE estimates that UK Uber drivers lost out on $1.6bn in pay as a result of Uber increasing its share of the fare, during the 12 months to March 2025. Uber said the UK take rate and lost earnings figures are inaccurate, and that its take rate had remained 'steady' at 25%. The company added: 'The Uber app reviews real-time information to provide the best price to appeal to the drivers in the area, helping to minimise waiting times for customers and maximise earnings. Drivers are shown their earnings for the trip before they decide whether to accept.' But as Uber grows more confident in its calculations, those transporting passengers say they are becoming less so. A driver's livelihood depends on their ability to guess what kinds of trips they will get at particular times and places, and how much those trips will pay. However, the University of Oxford study stated that 'drivers frequently complained about the unpredictability of pay post-dynamic pricing'. The paper continued: 'Any tacit knowledge drivers have built up over years about how much pay a given trip is likely to yield may no longer help them … the predictability of pay drastically changed after dynamic pricing was introduced.' An company spokesperson said: 'Uber drivers in the UK took home over £1bn in earnings between January and March of this year, which is up on the year before. Drivers choose to drive with Uber because we offer total flexibility on when they work and provide full transparency over the trips they accept. 'All drivers receive a weekly summary of their earnings, which includes a clear breakdown of what Uber and the driver received from trips. We are proud that thousands of drivers continue to make the positive choice to work on Uber as passenger demand and trips continue to grow.'
The Guardian
a day ago
- Business
- The Guardian
Many UK Uber drivers earning far less an hour under dynamic pricing, study finds
Many Uber drivers are earning 'substantially less' an hour since the ride hailing app introduced a 'dynamic pricing' algorithm in 2023 that coincided with the company taking a significantly higher share of fares, research has revealed. The findings are in a study released on Thursday by academics at the University of Oxford. They analysed data provided by 258 UK Uber drivers responsible for 1.5m trips. Having initially taken a fixed 20% cut of the UK fares charged, which subsequently rose to 25%, Uber introduced dynamic pricing in 2023, an algorithm that variably sets pay for drivers and fares for passengers. It is a later iteration of Uber's 'surge pricing' that increased fares during periods of peak demand. Uber is now claiming a cut, or 'take rate', of 29% of a fare, rising to more than 50% in some cases, the researchers found. Unions criticised the move when it was made in 2023, claiming there was no transparency and that the technology 'could push down working conditions by targeting drivers based on their willingness and ability to accept lower fares'. The Oxford research said: 'Post-dynamic pricing, Uber's passengers now pay higher prices, but the drivers are not better off.' The paper, which was published in partnership with the non-profit gig worker organisation Worker Info Exchange (WIE), concluded: 'Our findings suggest that post-dynamic pricing, many aspects of Uber drivers' jobs have gotten worse. Average pay per hour on the app is stagnant, and is lower in real terms in the year following the introduction of dynamic pricing. 'Uber's median take rate per driver has increased from 25% to 29%, and on some trips the take rate is over 50%. Furthermore, the higher take rates are concentrated among higher-fare trips, which explains how Uber can extract an additional 38% [income] from its driver's labour on average … Many drivers are earning substantially less per hour.' The findings follow a series of controversies to have engulfed the technology firm, including a 2021 UK supreme court ruling that Uber drivers are entitled to the minimum wage and paid holidays, as well as the 2022 release of the Uber files, a global investigation that revealed how the company duped police and regulators, and secretly lobbied governments across the world. After the release of the Uber files, Jill Hazelbaker, Uber's senior vice-president of public affairs, said: 'We have not and will not make excuses for past behaviour that is clearly not in line with our present values. Instead, we ask the public to judge us by what we've done over the last five years and what we will do in the years to come.' The Oxford research added that drivers' average hourly pay was £29.46, using an Uber definition, or £15.98 if counting waiting time when they made themselves available to pick up passengers. Neither average takes into account costs including vehicle maintenance, insurance or fuel. Sign up to Business Today Get set for the working day – we'll point you to all the business news and analysis you need every morning after newsletter promotion Uber said it did 'not recognise the figures in this report', adding: 'Every driver is guaranteed to earn at least the national living wage.' One interviewee in the study said it was only when passengers volunteered the fares they paid in conversations with drivers that 'you discover they [Uber] are robbing us and the customer'. An Uber spokesperson said: 'Uber drivers in the UK took home over £1bn in earnings between January and March of this year, which is up on the year before. Drivers choose to drive with Uber because we offer total flexibility on when they work and provide full transparency over the trips they accept. 'All drivers receive a weekly summary of their earnings, which includes a clear breakdown of what Uber and the driver received from trips. We are proud that thousands of drivers continue to make the positive choice to work on Uber as passenger demand and trips continue to grow.'
News.com.au
3 days ago
- Business
- News.com.au
ATO's dragnet: Millions of side hustles face shock tax bill
The tax office now sees everything you earn from Airbnb, Uber, OnlyFans and property investments – and their AI system is ready to flag thousands of Aussies side hustlers who don't declare it all. New reporting regimes will see the Australian Taxation Office have its strongest indication yet in 2025 of individual's sources of wealth across a dozen different types of third-parties including online marketplaces, cryptocurrency providers and share economy providers – with AI data-matching expected to flag all discrepancies. The ATO's new system can now see transactions as small as a $50 car space rental, a $100 Airtasker job or a weekend Airbnb rental – and match them to names, birth dates, and tax file numbers. Govt pays $3.3m for unliveable derelict house CPA Australia tax lead Jenny Wong said the gig economy was now reporting incomes directly to the ATO which could see some in for a shock bill this year. She warned anyone who doesn't report money earned through online platforms and pay tax on those amounts risked an amended return, extra tax bill and penalties. 'Until this year, individuals have been required to self-declare the income from their side-hustles. Now nothing will go under the radar. If you deliver food with DoorDash, work some casual jobs through Airtasker, or make content for Patreon, YouTube or OnlyFans, these sites are now reporting your earnings to the tax office.' The data-matching warning applies right down to even renting out a car space for a night, let alone a spare room or your investment unit. 'These rules apply to a broad range of services, not just the most well-known. If you use a website to rent out a carparking space or your designer handbag, this income will be recorded, and you'll need to pay tax.' Culture Kings founders' bold $30m push Property investors will face the highest scrutiny under the new system, with the ATO now cross-referencing not just data from bank accounts, property managers and insurance companies, but also those off rental platforms and sharing economy apps. 'You can claim an immediate deduction for some expenses in the income year you incur them provided your property is rented or genuinely available for rent,' an ATO statement said – though the cost must be paid by you not your tenant or someone else and you must keep adequate records for evidence. Ms Wong reserved the biggest warning influencers and those who have had a strong year of earning activity through sites like YouTube and OnlyFans, and said influencers have an obligation to declare any gifts and gratuities received as a form of payment. 'You must pay tax on income you earn above the tax-free threshold of $18,200,' she said. 'So, if you've had a successful year earning money through advertising revenue and streaming subscriptions, as well as through gifts and gratuities, the ATO will be expecting you to cough up. Yes, this even includes free cars, holidays, clothes and anything else you're lucky enough to receive as a form of payment.' Those amounts due to the tax office could run into the tens of thousands, she warned, 'depending on how much you've earned during the year'. This as ATO warned wild claims and missed income declarations were in its sights this tax return season. Among the areas in the hunt were interest and investment income, employment income, government payments, capital gains tax from the disposal of shares and property, employment-related foreign source income, taxable government grants and payments, payments made to contractors in the building and construction industry, private health fund information and distributions from a favoured source for many investors: partnerships, trusts and managed funds. CPA Australia's tips for gig economy workers: - Declare all income: Ensure that all earnings are reported in your tax return, regardless of the amount or frequency. This includes gifts and gratuities. - Maintain accurate records: Keep detailed records of income and expenses to support your deduction claims. - Understand your obligations: Familiarise yourself with your tax requirements, including ABN registration and GST obligations if applicable. - Seek professional advice: Consider consulting a professional tax agent like a CPA to navigate your tax affairs and ensure compliance.
BBC News
4 days ago
- Politics
- BBC News
Leeds MP warns over dangers of illegally modified e-bikes
The use of illegally modified e-bikes was a growing public safety and fire risk which required "urgent action" from the government, a West Yorkshire MP has said. A report by the All-Party Parliamentary Group for Cycling and Walking (APPGCW) has found that the lack of regulation around e-bike safety was putting lives at risk, particularly among delivery riders in low-paid, high-pressure Hamilton, Labour MP for Leeds North East and co-chair of the APPGCW, said it was a "crisis hiding in plain sight".The increase in battery fires caused by unregulated e-bike conversion kits was a "serious risk", according to Hamilton. The cross-party report, called Unregulated and Unsafe: The Threat of Illegal E-Bikes, was written following an inquiry which took evidence from fire services, police, industry bodies, gig economy workers, academics and regulators. It heard evidence that delivery riders, such as those transporting food, were often exploited and their working conditions were comparable to the "sweated labour" faced by factory workers during the industrial APPGCW report found that as a result of those working conditions, some riders were incentivised to use faster, often illegal, bikes to meet delivery also found that online marketplaces were selling unsafe products with little or no oversight, enforcement, or legal liability. 'Illegal and unsafe' The report called on online retailers to immediately withdraw unsafe e-bike items from sale, and for them to be accountable for unsafe suggested creating a government-backed e-bike safety "kitemark" in order to enable transport authorities and insurance companies to confidently lift e-bike also recommended reinstating "worker" status for gig economy riders so their rights and protections could be said: "While responsible cycling businesses continue to meet high safety standards, the rise of illegal and unsafe e-bikes, often bought online and used in the gig economy, has created serious risks for riders, the public, and the future of active travel. "We need urgent action from government and industry to stop unsafe products entering the UK and to protect those being exploited while trying to earn a living." Listen to highlights from West Yorkshire on BBC Sounds, catch up with the latest episode of Look North.
