Adaptation of the legal regulation of labor, civil, tax relations to the gig economy

• Published in: Law Enforcement Review Vol. 6; no. 4; pp. 314 - 329
• Main Authors: Mironova, S. M., Kozhemyakin, D. V., Ponomarchenko, A. E.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Dostoevsky Omsk State University 26.12.2022
• Subjects: digital platforms; gig economy; gig workers; insurance premiums; labor relations; platform employment; responsibility of digital platforms; self-employed; tax on professional income
• ISSN: 2542-1514; 2658-4050
• DOI: 10.52468/2542-1514.2022.6(4).314-329

The subject of the article is impact the gig economy to the legal regulation of labor, civil, tax relations. The purpose of the article is to identify the problems of legal regulation of relations between gig workers and digital platforms in the gig economy and suggest ways to improve it. The methodology includes systematic approach, comparative method, formal-logical method, formal-legal method, analysis, synthesis. The main results of the research. The transition from a “classic” industrial employment relationship between an employer and an employee to one based on the gig economy, using digital platforms to link the employee to their job, has created problems in classifying employment arrangements in labor law. In the current situation, the state needs to do a lot of work: (1) the sphere of the gig economy requires the compilation of clear terminology, as well as the analysis and identification of the functions of digital platforms and gig workers, then it requires amendments to labor legislation; (2) it is necessary to develop criteria for gig workers or independent contractors, one of the criteria can be proposed: the performance of work by a gig worker without the control of the hiring firm. The hiring firm's control should be limited to accepting or rejecting the results a gig worker achieves, not how they achieve them; (3) It is necessary to delimit the sphere of regulation of hired labor from the sphere of regulation of gig-employment, to withdraw gig-employment from the regulation of labor legislation. An analysis of the current legislation and law enforcement practice shows that the cornerstone of legal regulation in the field of the gig economy is the issue of legal registration of relations between digital platforms and their partners. Thus, with a rigid approach that identifies these relations with labor relations, the gig economy loses its specificity, digital platforms lose their competitive advantages in many ways, and in some cases, their ability to function. At the same time, the current relations in the field of employment of individuals on digital platforms allow us to speak about the presence of certain differences between such relations and labor relations, which are manifested mainly in greater freedom on the side of the "employee" and less control on the part of the employer – the digital platform, and also the unstable nature of this form of employment and its subsidiarity to more traditional forms. The specificity of the relationship between platforms and its counterparties also raises the question of the need to reform the provisions on civil liability, aimed at formulating special grounds for the responsibility of digital platforms, the distribution of this responsibility between them and their partners. Such provisions may be based on the existing norms on the liability of the employer for harm caused by his employee. Conclusions . The change of labor relations between employees and the employer to the relationship between the digital platform and gig workers predetermines the transformation of tax legal relations, in terms of the following aspects: what taxes should a gig worker pay, should there be any special tax regime; how the issue of paying insurance premiums should be resolved, whether they should be mandatory or voluntary; what role digital platforms will play in tax relations, whether they should act as tax agents or data providers; what requirements for gig workers, as taxpayers, should be imposed by tax legislation in terms of record keeping and reporting; how tax control should be exercised over gig workers and digital platforms.