WEEKLY ROUND-UP: COLLCONS MUST-READS-20th February

We scour the internet to find the most interesting news on the collaborative consumption front. Here are our picks for the week:

Sharing Is Declaring: How the Peer-to-Peer Economy Affects Your Taxes

Molly McCluskey, U.S. News

While the concept of shared consumerism can have environmental and financial benefits, the issue of taxes – who pays, who owes and how they’re declared – has proved challenging to the companies at the heart of the sharing economy, and occasionally baffling to the people who use its services.

The gig economy won’t last because it’s being sued to death

Sarah Kessler, FastCompany

This rising legal retribution is a huge threat to the gig economy. Not being responsible for employees’ taxes and benefits allows companies to operate with 20% to 30% less in labor costs than the incumbent competition, leading to eye-popping numbers like Uber’s$40 billion valuation or Instacart’s latest $220 million round of funding. Lose this workforce structure—either by a wave of class-action lawsuits, intervention by regulators, or through the collective action of disgruntled workers—and you lose the gig economy.

The collaborative consumption freight train

David Swan, Business Spectator

While regulators continue to mull Australia’s peer-to-peer future and how to bring the likes of Uber and Airbnb to heel, the tide may have already turned.

The back office start-ups that serve the sharing economy