Deliveroo and Uber Eats drivers are using fake accounts to dodge taxes or because they are not legally allowed to work, a De Tijd investigation has revealed.
Drivers unofficially working for Deliveroo or Uber Eats "borrow" login details via social media groups to make deliveries. Dutch-language newspaper De Tijd infiltrated Facebook groups with 6,000 to 10,00 members where users offer to "subcontract" their Deliveroo or Uber Eats profiles to others. They then enter into an agreement whereby the individual without an account works for a set amount of time and the person with the profile transfers them their wages afterwards.
There are several reasons for entering into such an agreement. Displaced, undocumented people will do so in order to earn money, for example, as do minors. Another group is unemployed people who do not want to lose out on unemployment benefits.
Status in dispute
Food couriers are entitled to "peer-to-peer" (P2P) status under Belgian law. They can earn up to €7,460 per year with a flat tax rate of 10.7%. Using multiple accounts means that they can exceed this threshold without paying more tax.
However, the P2P status is in dispute. A ruling last December stated that Deliveroo drivers must be considered as employees rather than independent contractors, overturning a judgement ruling the opposite in December 2021. The cabinet of the outgoing Finance Minister Vincent Van Peteghem (CD&V) is expected to publish advice on how to proceed with delivery driver status in Belgium.
Both Deliveroo and Uber Eats have stated that they use facial recognition to prevent the practice of sharing logins, but this has so far been "ineffective," according to De Tijd.
