Been there
late '70's early '80's Europe was flooded with 'self employed' techs in the chemical and oil industries (and most likely in a lot of other places), a lot of them UK and Irish citizens, who didn't pay taxes in their country because they were 'abroad for longer than 6 months' and didn't pay it elsewhere because they were self employed and registered in another country than the one they were working in. Companies like MF Kent, Badger, John Brown (IIRC) employed them by the hundreds. Somewhere late 80's the taxman and social security woke up and hit them with very large back-tax bills.
They all went under. Many filed for bankruptcy. Some disappeared to less prohibitive climes. The contractors fled, or the ones that had built a life in their guest countries were left carrying the can.
I very much suspect we'll see something along those lines for Uber, AirBNB and all those 'service' companies in the not so far future.
Biting the hand that feeds IT
