Taiwanese Uber drivers and riders are going to see their apps become unresponsive tomorrow. Uber announced that the company would suspend its services in Taiwan from February 10, 2017, due to huge costs in this marketplace.

According to Uber, the company hopes to find an alternative method to operate in Taiwan. If they are able to restart conversations with the Taiwanese local government, they would consider reopening of their services.

Uber reportedly entered the Taiwanese market four years ago and it provided over 15 million rides in four cities in Taiwan. However, Taiwan's investment review committee stated in 2016 that they might ask Uber to withdraw from the Taiwanese market, because the scope of business initially applied by the company was as an information technology platform, but they are now operating transportation services.

The Taiwanese government said that if Uber wants to continue its operations in Taiwan, they need to pay sales tax, which is probably up to USD6.4 million.

Statistics from Taiwan showed that by December 26, 2016, the local government had written 481 tickets to Uber, with total penalty fees of NTD68.45 million. Meanwhile, the penalties to Uber drivers reached NTD20.82 million.