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Do These Idiots Know What They’re Doing?
Yep, there are politicians who think we should tax robots which replace workers to make up for lost taxes. Here’s a pull quote:
“A robot that replaces a factory worker who produces say, $50,000 of work annually, should be taxed at the same level to offset losses in income and Social Security taxes, [Bill] Gates calculates.”
Insanity. The left boosts the minimum wage, which either closes businesses outright or results in automation being used to replace workers. Now governments are looking at taxing C3PO who is now making fries in a Seattle McDonald’s. If businesses cannot escape the minimum wage law by replacing workers with robots, the businesses will cease to exist, period.
Way to go, leftists. Way to go . . .
Published in Technology
This will only accelerate the arrival of the Great Robot Rebellion.
And when does this become taxing all scripts and programs and computers?
That is what I was going to ask. Just what exactly do they consider to be a robot? Lots of work can be automated by better technology. Which technologies should be taxed.
And if you’re going to tax US ingenuity, is the alternative sending jobs to China and other places with cheaper labor? How is that helpful?
In answer to the post title, NO!
Not helpful to U.S. workers. Helpful to the globalists.
Yeah, I think they actually believe that people won’t look for ways to avoid the extra cost. This why state’s millionaire taxes fail, because they never take into account that people will move.
Oh, I assume they know that, and they’re doing it on purpose.
Who gets to decide what is a taxable robot?
Who assesses the “value” of the work performed by the “robot” and on what basis?
Shaddup, prole! We get to decide! You get to pay!
But they won’t tax the brown or black robots. Or the red ones.
They have to let the robots vote, then.
No automation without representation!
And will there be tax-exempt robots that work for charities? Under rule 501 (c) (3PO) of course.
When can we replace the politicians with robots?
On it.
Good Lord – that is terrifying!!!
Have You forgot about Romney already?
It’s a glitch in the balance and orientation module. We’ll have a patch tomorrow and a new release by Friday.
I was trying – almost there. Then you had to go and remind me.
I shouldn’t be amazed they’re thinking of this, but I am an optimist. 🙄
No taxation without representation!
The cry of the bot-y politic.
Next step: charges for many years of back taxes on CNC machine tools, etc.
I have spent most of my career implementing automation in manufacturing plants all over the world. Back in the 90’s I was nearly finished with a multi-million dollar project in California, when I received a call from our Accounts Payable department. She wanted to know what account she should draw the California capital investment tax from. If I remember right, the tax was 7%. I didn’t know anything about this tax. I approached my boss, who was in charge of all the plants in North America. He didn’t know anything about the tax either, but his response was quick and to the point, “We will not be spending another dime in California”.
It wasn’t long afterward that CA eliminated that tax. Apparently my boss wasn’t the only one who felt that way.
Hence the appearance of “moving taxes” and IRS audits that follow you wherever you move . . .
The real question is, how will sex robots be taxed? What if people start marrying their sex robots?
She gets half your stuff after the divorce.
A high % of journalists appear to think that Robots are something new…actually, they have been around for a long time. NC and CNC machine tools have been in use since the 1960s; they may not *look* like movie robots, but robots they are. A Jacquard Loom (1802) is a robot, as are automatic dial telephone systems and automatic elevators.
See my post About Those Job-Killing Robots
I’m surprised no one put in a ticket to get that fixed before they rolled out the 2016 version. The campaign version was obviously broken.
Okay I’m calling it right now. @percival to the Time Out Corner for posting that GIF of Hillary. It keeps popping up on this thread and is giving me nightmares.
Definitely a trigger.