I think Brian's point is quite astute (if only because it reflects the point I was making earlier

) in that he's questioning the difference between the digital 'platforms' and the more conventional firms.
And which comes back to how HMRC will actually define which 'platforms' will be covered by the new rules. Which, as I said further up the thread, is the million dollar question, and will be interesting and instructive, and is linked to the wider questions about VAT and employment status.
But, in essence it once again comes back to what the difference is between Uber and the conventional trade. Not so much as regards a lot of things, I would say, but of course the whole 'expert' and official premise is that Uber et al are something different. (Although obviously the Sefton VAT case swung the other way as regards official opinion on the differences.)
The main difference in all of this, I would say, is that Uber is cashless.
But, for example, if a 'taxi' firm in St Andrews that just used two-way radios twenty years ago had ten years ago suddenly said that from then on they'd only do app bookings and automated payments, would that suddenly make them a tech platform?
Or, as regards talk of Uber doing trials of cash runs, would that suddenly make them a mainstream 'taxi' firm?
Or are all those 'taxi' operators now doing app stuff also tech platforms like Uber?
Or, if someone used the Uber app to order a car from a Local Cab office, did the local cab office suddenly become a tech platform?
So in terms of cash and automation as regards payments and bookings, it's always been a spectrum between a phone-booking firm doing mostly cash twenty years ago, and Uber and Bolt doing only app-bookings and automated payments today.
So just like the trans and sexuality thing, more of a spectrum than a binary
So why Uber, Bolt and Ola should be regarded as fundamentally different as regards the new rules is beyond me.
Of course, the information will certainly be more readily available if it's purely a tech platform, but convenience for HMRC shouldn't really be a factor in all of this, in my opinion
