AirBnb charges and pays VAT in the UK and EU [1]. EBay charges and pays VAT in the UK and EU [2]. I understand that companies want to avoid paying taxes, but I wonder what the legal reasoning was that led Uber to decide not to. Uber needs to pick its battles better.

[1] https://www.airbnb.com/help/article/436/what-is-vat-and-how-...

[2] http://sellercentre.ebay.co.uk/business/about-vat

I respected Uber when they started for pushing against bs regulations like, "you're drivers need to belong to a taxi union," or "stay away from airports."

But why screw with taxes? They won't win that fight. Why not just pay California a little bit of money to legally run their self driving cars? It'll cost them more in salaries to have a meeting about the issue than to pay it. And why not just deal with sexual harassment in the workplace? It's the right thing to do

The knives are definitely out now. The common theme is that almost all of these monumental blunders have to have been known and approved at the highest levels. I'm curious, what kind of leverage do VCs have on pushing for leadership change?

Click-bait.

It's not the ride that might cost Uber the money, it's the case that claims they are not paying the tax they should. The fact that the lawyer used Uber to take the ride to deliver the paperwork is ironic at best, more likely it's just irrelevant and used as, well, click-bait.

Maybe that's what's needed to get people to spend their limited attention on something.