Uber owes to New York City drivers tens of millions of dollars after admitting of taking extra commissions from the pre-tax fares, reported by The New York Times. On Tuesday, the company has revealed the malpractice and also said that the company would pay back the drivers their dues soon.
The company is supposed to take only the commission of between 20% and 25% of the fare after deducting the state taxes, reported by The Guardian. Instead of that, the company had been taking their commission from the gross fare, which means that the burden of state taxes was transferred on to the drivers while the company made its bag full.
Spokesperson of Uber said that the drivers in New York would get nearly $900 each as a refund for the mistake. Uber also said that they have discovered the problem while testing a new pricing scheme.
“We are committed to paying every driver every penny they are owed – plus interest – as quickly as possible. We are working hard to regain driver trust, and that means being transparent, sticking to our word, and making the Uber experience better from end to end,” the Uber’s regional general manager for US and Canada, Rachel Holt said in a statement.
However, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance is not convinced by the intentions of Uber. In the June 2016, the New York Taxi Workers Alliance had filed a class-action suit against Uber. The petitioners in the case held that the company’s policy to deduct the sales tax and also the injured driver fee from the pre-tax amount is amounted to wage theft, reported by The Guardian. The case was filed in the New York federal court.
This is not the just first time that Uber has admitted of underpaying its drivers in the Unites States. In the month of March, the company confessed of taking 5% extra commission from the Philadelphia drivers for 18 months, and they refunded the money. The company has also spent $20 million in the settlements in connection to the suit filed by the Federal Trade Commission which accused Uber of tricking drivers with the false promises of earning high.
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Mrudula Duddempudi.
