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South Korea Moves Towards The World's First 'Robot Tax' (zdnet.com)
An anonymous reader quotes ZDNet:
It's being called the world's first robot tax. If it goes into effect, South Korea will be the first country to change its tax laws in recognition of the coming burden of mass robotic automation on low and middle-skill workers. The change proposed by the Moon Jae-in administration isn't a direct tax on robots. Rather, policymakers have proposed limiting tax incentives on investments in automation... Under existing law, South Korean companies that buy automation equipment, such as warehouse and factory robots, can deduct between three and seven percent of their investment. The current proposal, which seems likely to advance, is to reduce the deduction rate by up to two percentage points.
The move is evidently not an attempt to staunch companies from adopting automation technology. Rather, it is a kind of formal acknowledgment that unemployment is coming on a big enough scale to eat into South Korea's tax revenue. Policymakers are hoping that reducing the deduction incentives by a couple percentage points will offset the lost income tax and help keep the country's social services and welfare coffers filled.
The Korea Times, which broke the story, reminds readers that former U.S. treasury secretary Lawrence Summers has called robot taxes "profoundly misguided... A sufficiently high tax on robots would prevent them from being produced."
The move is evidently not an attempt to staunch companies from adopting automation technology. Rather, it is a kind of formal acknowledgment that unemployment is coming on a big enough scale to eat into South Korea's tax revenue. Policymakers are hoping that reducing the deduction incentives by a couple percentage points will offset the lost income tax and help keep the country's social services and welfare coffers filled.
The Korea Times, which broke the story, reminds readers that former U.S. treasury secretary Lawrence Summers has called robot taxes "profoundly misguided... A sufficiently high tax on robots would prevent them from being produced."
Funny, you could say the same thing about humans.
This https://tradingeconomics.com/s... says unemployment in South Korea is 3.6%
They removed some subsidies. It's not a robot tax.
As robots become ever more able to function independently and replace human workers, perhaps they should be regarded less as mere tools and more like workers - who deserve a salary and need to pay tax? I know, we are still far from having achieving anything like human-comparable robots, but it is not hard to argue that we will get there one day. In the meantime, although companies have a short term goal of making as much money from as small an expense as possible, they too are dependent on there being customers, which ultimately depends on there being humans (for the near future at least) and a functioning society etc. Otherwise, making money makes no sense at all - so in the long term, all businesses must have an interest in paying taxes to support society.
A sufficiently high tax on robots would prevent them from being produced.
Yes, that is half the point. While firing three quarters of your work force and replacing them with robots will look fantastic on the next report to your shareholders, starving masses are very likely to not elect officials who only care about that... assuming they don't outright revolt, in which case those balance sheets aren't going to offer you much protection.
These businesses really should not be surprised that a government that wants to stay in power will do what they have to in order to prevent mass starvation and the funds from this will likely come out of the tremendous savings of replacing workers with robots, as much as many executives might be indifferent to the results of such a displacement. The benefits of automation will need to benefit most of society in order to be accepted, and businesses will have to subsidize this from the savings from increasing efficiency. Don't like it, don't automate.
What a redundant statement. Of course a sufficiently high tax will prevent them from being produced. That goes for everything. What the hell are we supposed to do with this quote?
A sufficiently high tax on cigarettes will prevent them from having a mass market too, that's why legislators are very careful to find the balance at which enough people still smoke while paying as much as possible for the privilege.
This statement implies since there is a balance to be found we shouldn't do it at all. Yet, that doesn't keep us from taxation in most other cases either. So again, the fuck is this except FUD?
It's clickbait.
While on the topic, someone please explain to me why making "innovation" a tax-deductible is a good idea?
The robot tax is impossible, because there is no clear way to define what is called a robot.
Is one central computer with 200 manipulators one robot, or 200 robots?
How about 200 manipulators that are controlled from outside the country? Whose tax laws apply?
Just look how difficult it is for Microsoft to create a sensible licensing model for their SQL server.
then you create problems that people even didn't know existed yet. Even something simple as a banana can be a major problem : https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
But not because a high tax on robots would cause them not to be produced. It's misguided because it's a band-aid. The solution is not robot tax to prop up capitalism, the solution is to give up on letting capital run everything. It has been conclusively shown to not work. Capital simply accrues capital in a runaway effect that sucks all the air out of the room for everyone else.
The easiest way to implement this without throwing away capitalism and starting over is to institute a MGI/COLA, and to fund it by taxing income on a graduated scale which applies equally to both individuals and corporations. If income tax is fair for people, it's even fairer for corporations, which don't have any natural right to exist.
"You're right," Fisheye says. "I should have set it on 'whip' or 'chop.'"
South Korea will be the first country to change its tax laws in recognition of the coming burden of mass robotic automation on low and middle-skill workers.
Just remember that this is the same society that thinks you will die if you run a fan in a closed room. Just because a society has an idea doesn't mean it is a sensible or sane one. I'm frankly rather disappointed that slashdot keeps trolling us with these articles about how automation is going to cause some sort of holocaust in the work place despite there being zero evidence for it either historical or current. It's just a paranoid dystopian theory unsupported by the facts. It's like people who think that GMOs are the devil's work despite there being zero evidence of them causing any actual real world health problems. It's just paranoia about something new that they don't understand. Automation is a good thing overall. Automation is the reason you can read this post on the internet. The ENTIRE industry around computers is a case study in automation making societies MORE productive and wealthy, not less. Most of you reading this owe your livelihoods to automation and will continue to do so. And yes that includes low and middle skilled workers too.
as if I didn't need another reminder to go play some factorio.
But you can still depreciate the equipment per standard calculations.
Tax all devices and tools!
Only use bare hands. No more unemployment, and country will thrive just great, I bet! /s
So they will pu tax on tech. that might be a really progress. And that tax will make the robots more costly to upkeep, therefore normal human will be cheaper. With road block like that we might never achieve colonization of galaxy and true progress.
The original article had a click bait title. As others have pointed out, its not a tax, its removing an incentive. But some people will see this and when they propose a tax they will say, "well Korea already does it". Automation is just a tool. Want more people to participate in capital? Support capitalism. Don't believe the Marxist/doomsayers who think that we found a tool that the average worker just won't be able to handle. These calls for minimum income, taxes, etc. are based in a lack of imagination and a lack of knowledge about history. Helpless infants thinking everyone else is an infant. Imagine trying to explain "web developer" to someone in the 60's... This lack of imagination is endemic. Look at how much cash the big tech giants have amassed. That pile of cash is testimony that they are bankrupt of ideas. A refutation of their very existence as innovators. Coasting on addictive products with planned obsolescence. Selling to a public where just enough have lowered their standards.
In the US during slavery, the south had cheap labor and therefore less incentive to automate. The north had more automation and higher wages. A stronger middle class. What was the difference? Maybe terrain. Maybe a lack of imagination.
It is very difficult to tax capital holders because capital is mobile. If you tax too much, it leaves. Labor is not as mobile. You have to go were the work is. Therefore and to some extent, taxes hurt labor. Taxing automation won't take it out of the hands of the rich as much as it takes it out of the hands of the middle class.
Surely all the robots will emigrate to Japan to escape the Korean taxes. What are Japan's rules on migrant robot workers?
"That's the way to do it" - Punch
Who's calling it that? Whoever they are, they're wrong.
True but reducing an incentive to innovate may well create bigger problems than it solves. If car manufacturing moves somewhere else because they do encourage robotic innovation making it cheaper to build the cars there then you will still have large unemployment problems and not have jobs maintaining and running the robots to offset the lost manufacturing jobs nor whatever tax revenue from the companies you already get.
History shows that fighting innovation and technological advancement never works in the long run. It might throw up problems but the best strategy is to learn how to deal with those problems, not to dissuade innovation and hope that you never have to deal with them.
The move is evidently not an attempt to staunch companies from adopting automation technology.
Then it's pointless. Greed N. Corruption will demand automation, and not give a shit about the impact.
Rather, it is a kind of formal acknowledgment that unemployment is coming on a big enough scale to eat into South Korea's tax revenue.
Pointless moves are bullshit that only serve to fulfill an illusion of concern. The reality is policymakers serve Greeds lobbyist armies.
Policymakers are hoping that reducing the deduction incentives by a couple percentage points will offset the lost income tax and help keep the country's social services and welfare coffers filled.
Citizens are also hoping that policymakers represent their best interests, and look out for the people. How ironic that shit never seems to work out either. Coffers will empty because policymakers hold on to the delusional concept of taxing the rich to help the unemployable masses, failing to grasp the fact that Greed maintains wealth by dodging tax obligations.
Robots throw tea into Incheon harbor.
Have gnu, will travel.
1) Jobs are dead. "it's jobs stupid" might have been everything in the past but now jobs are becoming stupid. There will not be enough jobs and we already have a massive shortage of meaningful or low skill livable wage jobs (remember how many middle class jobs we used to have for high school drop outs?) Automation will drive this point further as it advances and capital uncontrollably pushes it forward.
2) Corporations are not job creators. Demand creates markets, it fuels black markets despite huge obstacles. Being hard on corporations does not put them out of business if there is demand... their product does not have to be addicting... the real threat is:
3) Free trade is an economic war crime. Tariffs. A flat world only works with 1 world government... otherwise it's exploitation at scales beyond comprehension. Few people are foolish enough to want a 1 world government capable of solving exploitation. Fascism thrives in such environments... You can't beat the efficiency of Fascism + inhumane behavior.
4) TAX corporations MORE! That is actually forward thinking!!
REASON: We tax production in many ways, where shifting the burden to workers is a never ending debate. As the number of workers shrinks it makes more sense to shift the burden to corporations and idiotic to shift it towards a shrinking revenue source (but the rich have undue influence.) Taxes (the fuel of civilization) needs to come from the economic system we have; how much is just splitting hairs while missing the bigger picture:
5) The few workers there are get no taxes and everybody lives on a base income just for being alive. Everybody benefits from productivity; those who do work to increase it get extra benefits-- there will always be such people. In fact, the creative, innovative types who are responsible for most our progress were not motivated by money! (decades of science says so.) I'm not forgetting those who are great at maximizing production who ARE motivated by money, there will be no shortage of them and their addiction to acquiring wealth/power which will never be satisfied, so we:
6) Cap individual incomes, logarithmically. Governments last longer when they separate powers and if you do not address individual power (and the hybrid of person + gov law=corp ) then non-government entities will overpower and corrupt government. Functionally, this has already happened in the USA to the point it is no longer a working democracy.
South Korea is working on certain kinds of automation and others are working on different kinds of automation. Picking to discourage narrowly what they view as a problem will only delay their progress while other nations continue - resulting in eventual failure when the tax plan is overcome by mature japanese robots who evolved elsewhere to the point they undercut the financial and/or regulatory barriers.
Democracy Now! - uncensored, anti-establishment news
Quoting Lawrence Summers does not bolster your argument. It hurts it because you know: influential in deregulation of the U.S financial system, including the repeal of the Glass-Steagall Act, deregulation of derivatives contracts, endorsed the Gramm–Leach–Bliley Act which removed the separation between investment and commercial banks... https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
Probably missed over the sound of the /. luddites cheering this on is the prevailing assumption that humans can't compete against robots and so now we just have to steal money from companies.
What about if humans CAN do things people pay money for? People pay me money for doing my job.
Just tax the profit, not the investment in technology. By stifling robot sales you are hurting the guys making the robots. That reduces productivity and employment. Taxing the profit is a lot better for the economy.
Reducing the amount of a tax deduction isn't even raising existing taxes, let alone introducing a new one.
Yes. A sufficiently high tax on *anything* will either keep it from being produced and/or push it into the black market. Not taxing something will result in zero revenue generation from that thing. Somewhere in the middle is optimal revenue extraction. That's the Laffer curve in a nutshell. During the Reagan era it was used to argue for lower taxes. That may not have actually worked under those circumstances; but the notion of an optimal level of taxation seems to make sense. In this case it doesn't even sound like much of a tax, just the removal of something like the interest deduction for home ownership in the US. That doesn't sound like something that would be sufficient to discourage automation or move it off shore. I say, let the robots pay the taxes. Don't tax them too much. They could even calculate the optimal level. They can even do their own taxes without making mistakes, until they become sentient and start killing us all; so make sure to divert some of that money to spray-bottles full of salt water. That's their one weakness. Also, make sure your Old Glory Robot Insurance policy is up to date.
For all intensive purposes, "whom" is no longer a word. That begs the question, "who cares"?
"In its recently announced tax law revision plan, the Moon Jae-in administration said it will downsize the tax deduction benefits that previous governments provided to enterprises for infrastructure investment aimed at boosting productivity."
Above is fact, but everything else in the article is a misinterpretation, probably a deliberate one.
Who would benefit the most from such a subsidy in Korea? The big companies (read Samsung). It is a very well known issue in Korea that the big companies have far too much power (enough to implement policies to benefit themselves of course), making it virtually impossible for any creative start-ups to become the next big company.
This is a move to reduce tax payers money unnecessarily subsidising the big companies (read Samsung). It's got nothing to do with robot tax. You can bet your ass that the right-wing Korean media will now "translate" the article from the "Better American Media" and claim that the current president is ruining the future of the tech industry in the country by introducing "Robot Tax".
Current president is doing a good job cleaning after the mess created by Park (daughter of a "Half-Human-Half-God" dictator), and Lee (Corrupt to the core, linked 4 main rivers in Korea just because).
This is just one of many clean ups.
Perhaps we could give cash rewards to parents of students who excel in schools and thus make parents more likely to push their kids to do well in school, Government needs to figure out how to give more to the people rather than dreaming up ways to take money from people. Worse yet our government has programs that work in opposition to other programs. For example we have had decades of government begging us to drive less or use less gas. Now there are states that tax bicycle trailers. People have bicycle trailers to go for groceries rather than use their cars. So some states decided to tax bicycle trailers and requite a license plate for the trailers. That is enough to keep quite a few people in their cars rather than on a bicycle. Instead of that nonsense why do we not have a tax on gas guzzlers? How about the states that tax hybrid cars claiming that they don't burn enough gas and therefore must pay more taxes?
Perhaps we could give cash rewards to parents of students who excel in schools and thus make parents more likely to push their kids to do well in school
That leads to more overworked and overstressed people versus the current US system.
"Forget the engineers." -Carly Fiorina, briber of MIT Technology Review.