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South Korea Moves Towards The World's First 'Robot Tax' (zdnet.com)

Posted by EditorDavid on from the assessments-on-automation dept.

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."

12 of 83 comments (clear)

  1. What unemployment? by DOsinga · · Score: 3, Interesting

    This https://tradingeconomics.com/s... says unemployment in South Korea is 3.6%

    1. Re: What unemployment? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 2, Insightful

      The trick to a good economy is to address your problems before they are provlems.

  2. Wrong title by religionofpeas · · Score: 5, Informative

    They removed some subsidies. It's not a robot tax.

  3. Maybe it makes sense by jandersen · · Score: 3, Insightful

    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.

    1. Re:Maybe it makes sense by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      What would a robot do with a salary ? Go home in the weekend and spend it on coke and hookers ?

    2. Re:Maybe it makes sense by PolygamousRanchKid+ · · Score: 4, Funny

      What would a robot do with a salary ?

      Pay its taxes, of course. That is what this whole fuss is about: making sure that robots pay their fair share of taxes.

      Of course, robots will also spend their salaries on high-priced robotic AI tax lawyers, and end up stashing their loot in robotic AI offshore accounts, just like Apple and the rest.

      --
      Schroedinger's Brexit: The UK is both in and out of the EU at the same time!
    3. Re:Maybe it makes sense by religionofpeas · · Score: 2

      So how much salary should I pay the robot that cleans my dishes ?

    4. Re:Maybe it makes sense by Opportunist · · Score: 3, Insightful

      This is basically the reason why we're currently in the recession we're in: We're producing without paying the people supposed to buy the stuff we produce. This is not going to work in the long run.

      In the past, this was the reason our system worked. Companies paid their workers, who then in turn went and bought the products. That way the system worked. This changed radically when we started developing and producing abroad where we ship money away and get goods in return. It's a bit like back in the colonial days... only in reverse. This time, we're sending out our precious metals in return for trinkets and glass beads.

      Of course such a system is not sustainable. At a certain point we are no longer able to spend. That point has actually been reached about a decade ago, now it's propped up with more and more debt. And this will continue until the country sending us the beads and trinkets has enough of a domestic market to sell to.

      Then... well, why bother with the colony any more when there's nothing to be siphoned from it? Pay your debt and then we'll talk!

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
    5. Re:Maybe it makes sense by Opportunist · · Score: 3

      We don't need a revolution, we need domestic jobs. The system can work, but it requires money on the demand side. If you don't have workers that get paid, you don't have consumers that buy your stuff. It is actually that simple.

      --
      We used to have a Bill of Rights. Now, with the rights gone, all we have left is the bill.
  4. Redundant by Kokuyo · · Score: 2

    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?

  5. Subsidies removed by stoatwblr · · Score: 2

    But you can still depreciate the equipment per standard calculations.

  6. Re:Not if you're a European bureaucrat by Whibla · · Score: 2

    Even something simple as a banana can be a major problem

    I think the problem here was misrepresentation of the regulation, not the regulation itself.

    I'm not sure however what your actual point is in relation to GP or the topic in hand...