| Comment | Misreporting earnings wasn't the issue and just plays into old stereotypes. The problem was that the SEISS grants were based on trading profits only (or in other words on take home pay). It didn't take into account the cost of business. Meanwhile, business grants (which were to cover cost of business) were only available to businesses with fixed premises. Taxi drivers don't have fixed premises.
Compare with, say, a self employed hairdresser or whatever. They got the SEISS which covered 80% of their take home wages (the trading profit) and also got to claim business support grants on top of that to cover things like rent and bills on their physical shop. But taxi drivers couldn't get that second part. We only got the SEISS (the wages), but nothing to cover the costs of the vehicles (our version of premises). This meant drivers had the choice of sinking their SEISS into keeping the cars on the road or keeping the SEISS and giving up the cars. That's the long and short of it.
Some taxi grants eventually did come (a year after the pandemic started), which was too little and too late for many.
The problem wasn't unique to taxi drivers btw. The exact same problem was felt by driving instructors and any other kind of mobile business without fixed premises. |
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