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.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nccryZOcrUg
"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
