Should Grab & Uber Drivers Be Taxed On Their Income

This has been a hot topic this week since The Sunday Times came out with the article last Sunday that IRAS will be working with Grab & Uber to link the applications to IRAS in order to simplify the drivers’ need to input the gross fares less the call levy charged by Grab & Uber.

Personally, I felt that the article had failed to address that, like taxi drivers who rent their vehicles from the taxi companies, most of the drivers had rented their vehicles from car rental companies. The rental is a deductible expense to the driver. The petrol used is also a tax deductible expense. The driver can also claim parking of the car, ERP charges incurred when the car is not ferrying any passengers and car wash expenses. The concept should be as the same for taxi drivers.

For those drivers that use their own car, they can claim the commercial insurance for the car. A car for personal use only has personal car insurance, but commercial cars are allowed to ferry passengers.

This should not be confused by the fact that private car expenses, whether for personal or business use are not eligible for deduction. I feel that they are just like taxis.

I feel that the Straits Times should issue a clarification to the article, otherwise it will scare off the Grab & Uber drivers and make them return the cars to the car rental companies.

IRAS should also issue a Statement of Account Template, like what they did for the taxi drivers and hawkers.

When I did the community e-filing for the taxi drivers this year, I did come across cabbies who moved on to drive private hire vehicles and they still declared their income in accordance to what they did when they were taxi drivers.