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Taxing robots: SF supervisor wants California to talk about it

11 points by MilnerRoute 9y ago

thomas_howland 9y ago
Taxing "robots" is silly, mostly because it's impossible to define what a "robot" is in a remotely non-distortionary way or that doesn't require a horde of accountants to argue out. Taxing "capital", by its monetary value, is much easier, and has a similar effect of promoting labor substitution. It's also universally despised by economists for the obvious reason that accumulating capital increases the return to labor under most models and makes everyone wealthier. Of course California state politics are notoriously dumb, so who knows what'll happen.
- URSpider94 9y ago
  Piketty and his collaborators being a notable and significant exception. https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/piketty-saezNBER12optKtax.pdf https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/piketty-saezNBER12optKtax.pdf Taxing capital is hard, because it's mobile. Governments are afraid that if they tax wealth at a high rate, the wealth will just move elsewhere. Thus, most businesses get some sort of property tax abatement as part of an incentive to locate in a particular city or state.
  - benlorenzetti 9y ago
    But taxing capital would still be easier than taxing robot work, yes? Since taxing robots is effectively a tax on a difficult to define subset of capital
    - URSpider94 9y ago
      Not arguing with you there -- taxing robot work sounds almost nonsensical. If anything it would be a great jobs program for tax lawyers who will tie themselves in knots figuring out how to circumvent this ill-defined tax. Taxing capital is very straightforward from a regulations standpoint. It's only hard in that the capital will tend to flee the tax.
- igravious 9y ago
  Mooting a tax on one of the more futuristic by-products of technology makes you question both the nature of taxation and the essence of technology.
payne92 9y ago
tl;dr: A SF supervisor 'launched the "Jobs of the Future Fund", a crowdfunding effort to raise money to nudge the state to study the issue of what will happen to human workers in the age of automation.' Related article: http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/05/04/tax-robots-sf-supervisor-exploring-idea/ http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/05/04/tax-robots-sf-supervis... The fundamental problem: what's a "robot"? We've been developing labor-saving devices and technologies since the dawn of civilization. Where's the line where a device becomes taxable? Roomba? Teslas? A tractor? Looms? Machine tools? Drones? Printing presses? Teleprompters? Automated tomato sorting machines? I'm all for figuring out the future where there are many unemployed workers because there are no longer enough labor jobs. But if we're taxing labor replacement, we might as well just raise the sales tax.
- slindz 9y ago
  I'm not sure I understand your sales tax suggestion. Wouldn't a sales tax increase punish the consumers losing their jobs? Doesn't the increase in taxation have to come from business revenues in some way as a means to offset the reduction in consumer job income? update: I may be looking at the problem as too much as a closed system (ie. things are made where they're sold). The implications of relocating production to areas with different taxation rules make an ideal solution very tricky.

11 points by MilnerRoute 9y ago

Taxing "robots" is silly, mostly because it's impossible to define what a "robot" is in a remotely non-distortionary way or that doesn't require a horde of accountants to argue out. Taxing "capital", by its monetary value, is much easier, and has a similar effect of promoting labor substitution. It's also universally despised by economists for the obvious reason that accumulating capital increases the return to labor under most models and makes everyone wealthier. Of course California state politics are notoriously dumb, so who knows what'll happen.

URSpider94 9y ago
Piketty and his collaborators being a notable and significant exception. https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/piketty-saezNBER12optKtax.pdf https://eml.berkeley.edu/~saez/piketty-saezNBER12optKtax.pdf Taxing capital is hard, because it's mobile. Governments are afraid that if they tax wealth at a high rate, the wealth will just move elsewhere. Thus, most businesses get some sort of property tax abatement as part of an incentive to locate in a particular city or state.
- benlorenzetti 9y ago
  But taxing capital would still be easier than taxing robot work, yes? Since taxing robots is effectively a tax on a difficult to define subset of capital
  - URSpider94 9y ago
    Not arguing with you there -- taxing robot work sounds almost nonsensical. If anything it would be a great jobs program for tax lawyers who will tie themselves in knots figuring out how to circumvent this ill-defined tax. Taxing capital is very straightforward from a regulations standpoint. It's only hard in that the capital will tend to flee the tax.
igravious 9y ago
Mooting a tax on one of the more futuristic by-products of technology makes you question both the nature of taxation and the essence of technology.

payne92 9y ago

tl;dr: A SF supervisor 'launched the "Jobs of the Future Fund", a crowdfunding effort to raise money to nudge the state to study the issue of what will happen to human workers in the age of automation.' Related article: http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/05/04/tax-robots-sf-supervisor-exploring-idea/ http://www.siliconbeat.com/2017/05/04/tax-robots-sf-supervis... The fundamental problem: what's a "robot"? We've been developing labor-saving devices and technologies since the dawn of civilization. Where's the line where a device becomes taxable? Roomba? Teslas? A tractor? Looms? Machine tools? Drones? Printing presses? Teleprompters? Automated tomato sorting machines? I'm all for figuring out the future where there are many unemployed workers because there are no longer enough labor jobs. But if we're taxing labor replacement, we might as well just raise the sales tax.

slindz 9y ago
I'm not sure I understand your sales tax suggestion. Wouldn't a sales tax increase punish the consumers losing their jobs? Doesn't the increase in taxation have to come from business revenues in some way as a means to offset the reduction in consumer job income? update: I may be looking at the problem as too much as a closed system (ie. things are made where they're sold). The implications of relocating production to areas with different taxation rules make an ideal solution very tricky.