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Los Angeles City Council Looking To Regulate Uber and Lyft Drivers

City councils have a lot of power to say what can and cannot happen within city limits, and we are beginning to see what this type of local control could look like in Los Angeles, CA. RSG senior contributor Sergio Avedian outlines the latest proposal from the LA City Council to regulate rideshare drivers.

Safety of passengers as well as drivers comes up every time either a passenger or a driver gets killed. Unfortunately, Uber and Lyft have not been able to come up with a concrete solution to this problem. Granted, it is a very difficult task to achieve considering the sheer scale of rideshare industry these days. Close to 10 million rides take place on a daily basis on both platforms. Guaranteeing safety 10 million times is likely impossible – but local governments want to see if they can help.

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Deactivated after a background check?

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You can fight back. The Fair Credit Reporting Act entitles you to accurate information for backgound checks. Contact The Consumer Law Firm of Francis & Mailman for a free case review if you've been deactivated by Uber or Lyft due to an error on your background check! Contact Francis & Mailman here!

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Do Rideshare Drivers Need To Get Business Licenses?

In this Throwback Tuesday Classic, RSG contributor Paula Gibbins answers a question many drivers are worried about: do we need business licenses to drive with Uber and Lyft? Many LA Uber drivers recently received a notice from Uber stating they need a business license to operate in the city, which came as a surprise to many drivers. This isn’t the first time this has happened to rideshare drivers. Here’s what all drivers should know about business licenses and rideshare driving.

Update: Since SB 182 passed in California, California drivers now only need one business license to work statewide. Drivers can obtain this business license in the city where they live.

The Case Of San Francisco

The actual language of the letter drivers in SF received was “if you drive on San Francisco streets seven days or more a year and work as an independent contractor rather than an employee of your TNC, you are required to obtain a Business Registration Certificate.” It gave me 30 days to either register for “both the current registration period and the 2016-2017 registration period.” 

Or I could to go to a different website and declare I do not need to register. Now, it gives you 15 days from starting business to submit your registration.

For those of you who are interested, here is the full letter that drivers received from the SF Office of the Treasurer & Tax Collector, along with the response that Uber and Lyft gave to drivers:

What's up with business licenses and rideshare driving? Ryan tells us what rideshare drivers need to know about business licenses.

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Are Uber Drivers Employees? Cloud Looms Over Rideshare Industry

As drivers, we are expected to do a lot of things for our “job.” While we can choose the hours we work, pay can be inconsistent and some drivers are incentivized to drive at hours they may not prefer, all for the lure of extra pay. So what does this actually make drivers – true independent contractors, or something else? Senior RSG contributor John Ince tackles this question below.

If you’re interested in signing up to drive for Uber, Uber Eats, Lyft, Postmates, or Doordash, click here to sign up

Should Uber & Lyft Drivers Be Employees or Independent Contractors?

A cloud hangs over the entire ridesharing industry. It’s a legal cloud of ambiguity as to what exactly drivers are.  Are drivers independent contractors as Uber and Lyft would have the world believe? Or are drivers employees – as two important legal bodies have ruled within the last six months?  Further adding to the confusion, Recently, the 9th Circuit of San Francisco ruled that a major lawsuit on this issue could not proceed because driver’s signed away their rights when the signed up to drive for Uber and agreed to arbitration on these issues. So the issue remains in legal limbo and likely will for the foreseeable future.

It’s a legal issue that affects everything in this new space called the gig economy. Labor advocates argue that this gig labor development has set back labor rights fifty years.  Those on the other side argue that it’s brought flexibility and income opportunities to countless people that otherwise would be wanting.

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How The New GOP Tax Bill Affects Uber Drivers (Explained)

We’ve been getting a lot of questions on our Facebook page and via email about the latest tax bill, the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act, and how it will affect rideshare drivers. As rideshare drivers are independent contractors, taxes can be slightly more complicated than an average salary worker (you can learn more about taxes for rideshare drivers here!) Today, senior RSG contributor Christian Perea breaks down how the new tax plan could impact drivers and what you need to know about it.

👉 Your two most important tools during tax season: Turbotax to file your taxes and a mileage tracking app to keep track of your miles!

The ink is still drying on the final Republican tax bill known as the Tax Cuts & Jobs Act and we’ve been getting ALL KINDS of questions on how the new tax bill will affect us as Uber and Lyft drivers.

Disclaimer: I’m not a tax professional and you shouldn’t take this article as tax advice.

Broadly, the bill should benefit rideshare drivers, since it strongly favors small businesses and as you already know, we are all small businesses. That being said, this bill is still brand new and very complex. It’s likely to take several months before the experts hash out the best tax strategies.

Today, senior RSG contributor Christian Perea breaks down how the new tax plan could impact drivers and what you need to know about it.

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Would Uber and Lyft Really Pull Out of Chicago?

Update (6/20/16): Looks like Uber and Lyft may be safe for now.  Ald. Beale has agreed to ‘study’ the fingerprinting issue for 6 months and will not require rideshare services to fingerprint their drivers – for now.

This Wednesday, the Chicago City Council will vote on an ordinance that could force Uber and Lyft to pull out of the city indefinitely.  If this story sounds familiar, it should.  Over the past year, Uber and Lyft have waged regulatory battles in several high profile locales (New York, Broward County, etc), and neither company is currently operating in Austin due to a recent fingerprinting requirement imposed by the city council.

We actually traveled to Austin a couple weeks ago to see the situation first-hand, and now it looks like Chicago might be next.  Many municipalities have tried to impose stricter taxi-like regulations over the past year, and it’s been a huge sticking point for the TNCs.  In fact, anything that involves fingerprinting of drivers or impediments to on-boarding is likely to elicit pull-out threats from Uber and Lyft since these companies rely on being able to churn and burn through their workforce.  By Uber’s own admission, they lose half of all drivers after just 12 months and, when you factor in their growth, they need to hire at least 60,000 new drivers every single month (according to my calculations) just to run efficiently.

We've heard this before - would Uber and Lyft really leave Chicago? We cover the regulations in Chicago here.

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