Dylan in his monastic habit
Pope Leo receives Bob Dylan at the Vatican
Uber to pay $81 million in payroll tax to NSW tax office, High Court rules
The states are set to receive a payroll tax windfall worth hundreds of millions of dollars after the High Court ruled Uber is liable for an $81m bill levied against it by the NSW government, in a decision likely to send shockwaves through gig economy platforms.
The High Court found there was a contract between Uber and its drivers, and that driver fares were considered "wages", making it liable to pay payroll tax.
Uber warned the court decision could have "significant unintended consequences" for other businesses.
The Transport Workers' Union said the decision was a "critical reality check to companies seeking to skirt our laws".
High Court hits Uber with $81m payroll tax in blow to gig economy
Uber must pay the state of NSW at least $81 million in payroll tax, almost 10 times its local profits last year, after the ride-share giant lost a final appeal to the High Court, in a decision that could dramatically increase the tax burden on gig economy companies.
The High Court ruled on Wednesday that the fares Uber collects on its drivers’ behalf are in fact “wages” under NSW tax law, meaning payroll tax applies. Uber is therefore on the hook for the full $81.5 million in payroll tax that NSW authorities have ordered it to pay, on fares the company collected between 2015 and 2020.
Uber has lost a landmark legal battle over payroll tax in Australia. AP
That figure is almost 10 times the $8.7 million Uber posted in net Australian profits for 2025, and dwarfs even the record $21.2 million profitthe company recorded in 2024. Uber’s total tax bill is likely to grow, once NSW assesses what the company owes for more recent years.
NSW Finance Minister Courtney Houssos said the government welcomed the ruling and would consider it carefully.
“Payroll tax is a key part of the state’s tax base,” Houssos said. “Only around 5 per cent of NSW businesses pay payroll tax – the majority of which comes from big businesses – and it helps fund essential services that families and households rely on.
“Local businesses pay their fair share. Uber should pay their fair share too.”
Because similar laws exist in every state and territory except Western Australia, it is possible that Uber and “gig worker” businesses like it will face a deluge of tax assessments, with revenue authorities newly empowered by the High Court ruling.
A spokeswoman for Uber said the company would respect the High Court’s decision, although it disagreed. “We do not believe digital marketplaces like Uber should be captured by payroll tax legislation designed for traditional employment and contracting arrangements.”
The company said the ruling could have “unintended consequences” and called on governments to consider whether payroll tax laws “remain fit for purpose in an economy where technology platforms connect independent service providers directly with customers”.
The legal fight leading to Wednesday’s loss began in 2021, when Uber objected to the $81.5 million in payroll tax NSW’s tax commissioner had ordered it to pay for 2015 to 2020.
Companies normally pay payroll tax on employees’ wages, but there are some sections of the law that extend payroll tax to contractors, the category that Uber drivers fall into. The NSW tax commissioner argued Uber drivers fell within these so-called “contractor provisions”, which apply where a company agrees to pay a contractor in exchange for “services” (as opposed to goods).
Uber objected to the assessment, claiming it was merely a “payment collection agent” for its drivers, and arguing that drivers were performing services to passengers, and not to Uber. It also argued that the contractor provisions were designed only for cases of true “sham contracting”, where a contractor is really an employee in disguise.
After losing in NSW’s top court, Uber made a last-ditch appeal to the High Court, which was heard in March this year.
On Wednesday, six of the seven High Court judges found that the “contractor provisions” could apply to the “gig economy”, even though they were enacted decades before ride-sharing and other gig-based business models were invented.
The provisions were “always speaking in the present to participants in the gig economy”, Chief Justice Stephen Gageler ruled.
The majority also found that drivers provide “driving services” to Uber directly, under a standard contract. The court concluded that Uber has “substantial control” over how drivers work – for example, it sets minimum standards, and can block drivers from its app – and also controls the fares it remits to drivers, making it more than a mere “payment collector”.
Mimi Zou, a UNSW professor and barrister who specialises in tax, said the judgment was “likely to affect other intermediaries operating under comparable legislation and contractual arrangements”.
“However, the decision did not decide that Uber drivers are employees generally or automatically establish entitlements under labour laws.”
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Westpac to exit Palantir partnership
The bank will end its Palantir deal and review its sourcing safeguards as shareholder activists turn up pressure on the surveillance tech and big data company.
The Remarkable Serbian Election
I’ve been reading a bit about the recent election in Serbia and some of the details are fascinating. A student-led coalition toppled the 12-year corrupt reign of “the increasingly authoritarian leader” Aleksandar Vučić in recent elections. But in order to ensure voters and allies that this wasn’t a grab for power on the part of the students, the students ruled themselves out.
Supporters had the votes, but they needed the losing side to stay. The strict rules were a promise: to those who had opposed running, that it would not turn the movement into a party; to voters, that the list was no party in disguise.
No student may run: anyone enrolled in 2024/25, or with studies on hold, is excluded. The drafters wanted no suggestion that students were building political careers. Former members of the ruling coalition’s 20 parties are barred, and so are former officials of parliamentary opposition parties. That leaves doctors, academics, artists, former athletes and activists. Ordinary members of opposition parties were not barred, but almost none with a party past. The list is led by Ilija Srdanović, a cardiologist and professor in Novi Sad.
The result is the Student List. From a pre-election piece in the NY Times: Something Astonishing Is Happening in My Country. The World Should Take Note.
The students’ list of 250 candidates is remarkable in itself. Comprising professors, scientists, doctors, workers, actors and activists, the candidates — most of whom had been unknown to the public — were selected through a lengthy sequence of scrutiny and interviews. University faculties proposed candidates, then reviewed nominees from across the country. After discussing the options, student assemblies made their choices. Thousands participated in this decision-making process — an extraordinary experiment in bringing direct democracy into mainstream politics.
The established opposition, meanwhile, has been pushed aside, with many of its parties backing the student list. The student movement has turned the election into something like a referendum on the regime, captured in its slogan: “Serbia or the mafia.” Many assumed the students were too inexperienced or naïve for electoral politics. But with some polls putting support for the student list above 40 percent, the race appears to be tight.
The students are coming for the machine. And, astonishingly, they might win.
Super interesting, right? US electoral politics don’t work the same as Serbia’s, but I wonder if there’s a way to inject some aspect of the Student List into US elections?
See also How to Give Away a Fortune, which resonates with the Serbian movement IMO.
