Massachusetts levies a new tax on ride-sharing transactions
Massachusetts has levied a new tax on ride-sharing transactions, in a move designed to prop up a dinosaurish taxi industry that is swiftly becoming extinct.
Effectively, the Commonwealth of Massachusetts is punishing ride-sharing platforms for succeeding in the free market, and is forcing them to support a failed industry which can’t survive on its own merits.
The five-cent fee (which will amount of almost $15,000,000 by the time the fee expires in 2021) is designed to “support modernization, training, and improvement of the taxi and livery industry.”
Of course, if the taxi industry — which enjoyed a complete monopoly in its market for a century — had the good sense to modernize and improve on their own, they wouldn’t be facing the free-market equivalent of an asteroid racing down upon them.
But the taxi industry grew complacent, and has not been able or willing to adjust to competitors who offer faster, cheaper, cleaner, and more efficient service. In short, the taxi industry turned itself into a dinosaur — and ride sharing services are making sure that the dinosaur fossilizes.
Amazingly — and in a damning statement of just how far the taxi industry has fallen behind — the Independent Taxi Operators Association says that the measure is “too little, too late” to save the taxi industry.
We would suggest that if $15,000,000, funded entirely by their competition to the competitions detriment, isn’t enough to save the taxi industry in Massachusetts, then the taxi industry in Massachusetts isn’t worth trying to save.
Unfortunately, that won’t stop the Commonwealth of Massachusetts from doing its best to stop the free market from doing what the free market is supposed to do — that is, ensuring that the best companies succeed, while pushing failed business models into the dustbin of history.
