&gt;I assume that people who say &quot;not having to pay employer tax share for contractors&quot; they mean things like unemployment insurance, and other employer-components of &quot;payroll tax&quot;? Is that still a red herring?<p>It doesn&#x27;t have the same dynamic as the payroll tax, but it&#x27;s misleading because the other point applies: the more benefits you buy for workers, the less (direct) cash you have to offer to entice them to do the work. Like with health insurance, a mandate for it would just mean Uber would lower time&#x2F;mileage rates. In effect, this is the same as forcing drivers to use their cash earnings to buy unemployment insurance, which may be a worse use of the money.<p>&gt;Also, it seems the paperwork and entities involved would get messy. The &quot;employees&quot; still own the car and need to expense&#x2F;depreciate it, right?<p>Huh? They&#x27;re already doing that as contractors. And Uber is now at the scale where (relatively) fixed paperwork costs aren&#x27;t that big a deal.