One of the world’s most technologically-minded (not to mention richest) people thinks that robots should be taxed just like their human counterparts.
The co-founder of Microsoft believes that if a robot replaces a human in doing a job, then that robot should be taxed at a similar level, with those taxes then being pumped forward into financing jobs in assisting the elderly or teaching schoolkids.
Only a few days ago it was reported by Reuters that a similar EU robot tax was rejected, with the plan to take the money made from taxation to then be used in retraining the workers that the robots had replaced.
“Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed,” Gates told Quartz. “If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you’d think that we’d tax the robot at a similar level.”
“Some of it can come on the profits that are generated by the labor-saving efficiency there,” he added. “Some of it can come directly in some type of robot tax. I don’t think the robot companies are going to be outraged that there might be a tax. It’s OK.”
Clip via Quartz
