You will no longer be able to order Uber or Cabify in Barcelona from February
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The Generalitat de Catalunya has ended up approving the decree law to regulate the activity of the VTC companies after intense days of struggle and strikes by the taxi sector. In reaction to the announcement, Uber and Cabify have irreversibly and unconditionally decided to leave the city of Barcelona, the only one in all of Catalonia to provide the service. And what conditions does this agreement establish? Well, VTC vehicles will have to implement a pre-contracting time of at least 15 minutes (a car will have to be stopped during that time before being able to take someone to their destination), they will not be able to have the GPS activated before having contracted a route and they will not be able to circulate on public roads unless they have someone inside to be transferred.
Goodbye Uber, goodbye Cabify
Uber has declared that, given the reality that is being presented to them, they will stop providing service in Barcelona starting tomorrow, coinciding with the date on which it will enter into force the new decree law of the VTC. However, the transport company does not definitively close the doors to a return to Barcelona, hoping that they can reach new agreements, fairer for them, with the Generalitat. According to Uber's own data, more than half a million Barcelonans have used its service at some point since its activities began there.
The American license company VTC argues that the decree law leaves them helpless and applies conditions that cannot be found in any other European country, such as having to wait 15′ to be able to travel with the passenger Something that goes against the immediacy offered by their on-demand service, according to their own words.
Uber is not going to be the only one affected by the decree law that protects the taxi against VTC companies. Cabify has declared that «after reviewing the text, which is now official, the company concludes that this regulation has as its sole objective, and therefore also as a final consequence, the direct expulsion of the Cabify application and its collaborating companies in Catalonia. and Barcelona »
Where are Uber and Cabify taxed?
One of the major accusations brought against Uber is the fact of not paying taxes in Spain The VTC company, from American origin, works with a Spanish subsidiary company (Uber System Spain SL) formed in 2014. The parent company, Uber International Holding B.V. It is located in the Netherlands whose tax conditions are very favorable. Everything that is invoiced is transferred to the parent company.The subsidiary is only in charge of the marketing and sales service whose operations generate very few benefits. However, Uber drivers do pay taxes on what they earn in Spain. For each trip that an Uber driver makes, the company takes 25% of the total amount earned.
Cabify, however, maintains that all its business volume is registered through its subsidiary company in Spain, that is, it enters the total number of trips and declares them in our country as such. In 2015, according to data collected in the Mercantile Registry, Cabify entered Spain 5,477 million euros while Uber's revenues decreased to 1,268 million.
Meanwhile, in Madrid the Taxi strike continues, waiting for the government to carry out some movement similar to the one we have seen in Catalonia. Will Cabify and Uber ever return to Barcelona?
