Taiwan to ask Google and Apple for Uber's removal from their app stores

Uber and the Taiwanese government have been in an intense Mexican standoff situation for quite some time now. On one side, we have the rides app, which presents itself as an internet-based tech platform, and on the other we have Taiwanese officials, claiming Uber is a transportation service.

The legal battle is, as everyone probably guessed, a matter of money. Uber was not required to pay sales taxes until recently, since it operated as an Internet platform. However, the Taiwanese government is overhauling its tax laws and it's trying to force Uber to pay back what it saved in taxes since the start of its Taiwan operation in 2013. According to local medias, the sum could be $6.4 million, which would explain why Uber would risk getting booted off the island, instead of just paying up.

And, if you ask Uber, it's all peachy. The company recently said that it communicates with the government and obeys all laws, so its business in Taiwan is completely legitimate. But the government has a different opinion on the matter. “Uber has not done what it says it will do,” a Taiwanese official said for Reuters. “So we are looking at another way by requesting its apps to be removed from Apple [App Store] and Google [Play]”.

Either way, it appears that officials on the island are not going to back down, so we will have to wait and see how this progresses in the near future.

via Reuters