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EU Commissioner Says No to Bill Gates' Robot Tax Idea (fortune.com)

Posted by msmash on from the different-perspective dept.

Andrus Ansip, the European Commissioner in charge of the Digital Single Market, has said that he does not support Bill Gates' idea of taxing robots that replace human workers. From a report: Microsoft founder Gates made an argument for robots incurring taxes equivalent to that worker's income taxes during an interview in February. "Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed," he said. "If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you'd think that we'd tax the robot at a similar level." But Ansip has made it clear that he is not in favor of a robot tax. Speaking during a CNBC-hosted panel at the Pioneers tech conference in Vienna on Thursday, Ansip said the "aim of taxation is not just (to) collect revenues... but to increase salaries of teachers and police," CNBC reports. "No way. No way," he added, when asked if he would support the tax.

3 of 128 comments (clear)

  1. Bill Gates is correct on this issue by sinij · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Government relies on income and sales taxes to disproportionate degree. With robots taking over, there won't be enough money to support social programs or even local government. We will quickly get to unified world government, but it will be controlled by multinationals that own these robots.

  2. Wookie defense by ezdiy · · Score: 3, Insightful
    I'm not an english speaker, can one tell me how:

    Aim of taxation is not just (to) collect revenues... but to increase salaries of teachers and police

    Is related to robot tax in *any* way? Does he mean since there will be robots, police and teachers etc will be no longer necessary, thus government expenses will be vastly lower and ensuing gap in income tax will be a non-issue? Or police and teachers will be robots too, so it all cancels out? I just have grave difficulty connecting "we need teachers" (?) and "this is why we must not tax robots" in logically coherent manner.

  3. Re:A little short-sighted by Richard_at_work · · Score: 4, Insightful

    They didn't tax Excel, VisiCalc or Lotus 1-2-3 even when they put entire floors of people out of jobs in accounting rooms in larger businesses...

    So why should they tax the "robots" being used to automate other jobs?

    Gates seemed to be fine when it was his product doing the automation, I don't see whats all that different about this situation.