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This sounds unreasonable if you think of income taxes. However imagine we shifted taxation so that income taxes were zero but businesses paid more taxes on thei
by advisedwang 10y ago
This sounds unreasonable if you think of income taxes. However imagine we shifted taxation so that income taxes were zero but businesses paid more taxes on their revenue (or profit). Then there is overall the same tax paid when a job shifts to a robot, whereas now the effective tax reduces because no income tax is being paid.
Of course it's difficult to shift tax burden to companies, especially with multinationals. However Mr Gates might be right that such a solution would have better incentives and be more ethical.
- iopq 10y agoIf businesses pay more taxes on profit, it's close to the impact of a sales tax. This is because the business ultimately only has money by taking it from customers. You're taxing the money that customers pay to the business. That money is money unavailable for expanding the business - if you want to actually make enough profit to open a new location you'll have to raise your prices. Every successful business thinks the same thing. So everyone raises their prices as a form of implicit collusion to keep their profits at a healthy level. This is equivalent to how a sales tax would operate with minor differences.