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Should we tax robots?

Beelzebuddy said:
$40k seems way too low. I was under the impression that this was to be a tax on conspicuous consumption. The middle class, or what remains of it upon implementation, should rarely see it.
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TGZ appeared to define consumption as the difference between income and savings. So if income is $250K and savings is $0, they'd be taxed on the $250K that they spent. I said $40K, based on my understanding, because that at least gets us to the median household income, and most folks at the median don't have much in the way of savings. It would likely be extremely regressive in effect if they were taxed on necessities as "consumption".

But I could also be misunderstanding.
 
The revenue must come from somewhere.
And if it is going to replace most other taxes, it would probably start at the same level as income tax is now at.
 
Emily's Cat said:
TGZ appeared to define consumption as the difference between income and savings. So if income is $250K and savings is $0, they'd be taxed on the $250K that they spent. I said $40K, based on my understanding, because that at least gets us to the median household income, and most folks at the median don't have much in the way of savings. It would likely be extremely regressive in effect if they were taxed on necessities as "consumption".

But I could also be misunderstanding.
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You seem to be asking for a tax scheme similar to the one we have: inscrutably complicated, where taxes start at very low income levels but with lots of credits and exceptions where money spent on lots of different things don't count for tax purposes. Aside from the fact that it makes doing taxes a much bigger chore than it has any need to be, it only brings in a pittance while opening up rhetorical whining about how the middle class isn't contributing "its share" when this is meant to be a tax on the 1% specifically.

TGZ seems to be proposing a simpler scheme, where some income limit is picked to represent the maximum "necessary" income, and anything spent beyond that is taxable. The progressive nature of the tax is hard-coded in the high bracketing. It doesn't even touch the bottom 80% of the population. $100k, for example, will buy you as many necessities as you could reasonably need even in expensive urban areas, so it can be assumed that anything spent beyond that contained something taxable.

[ETA]
The Great Zaganza said:
The revenue must come from somewhere.
And if it is going to replace most other taxes, it would probably start at the same level as income tax is now at.
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Oh, replacing all taxes is different then. Nevermind, yeah, you probably gotta get 'em used to being taxed even while they don't have much. Still, a simpler progressive bracketing would be the way to go.

Income tax starts at $1, by the way.
 
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The Great Zaganza said:
The revenue must come from somewhere.
And if it is going to replace most other taxes, it would probably start at the same level as income tax is now at.
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Replace income tax with your progressive consumption tax - should reduce personal taxes paid by individuals in most cases.

Replace flat corporate taxes with progressive corporate taxes - should produce either higher corporate tax revenues or lower price of goods or both.

Replace flat capital gains tax with progressive capital gains tax - should produce net higher tax revenue, although would lower taxes on very moderate savings and investments (which would benefit lower income people).

Abolish progressive income tax. The combo above should easily replace that revenue stream, with less material impacts to lower income people than they have now... and if done well would also reduce complaint from wealthy individuals. It would shift a substantial burden on to corporations, which IMO is probably the best idea.
 
Beelzebuddy said:
You seem to be asking for a tax scheme similar to the one we have: inscrutably complicated, where taxes start at very low income levels but with lots of credits and exceptions where money spent on lots of different things don't count for tax purposes. Aside from the fact that it makes doing taxes a much bigger chore than it has any need to be, it only brings in a pittance while opening up rhetorical whining about how the middle class isn't contributing "its share" when this is meant to be a tax on the 1% specifically.

TGZ seems to be proposing a simpler scheme, where some income limit is picked to represent the maximum "necessary" income, and anything spent beyond that is taxable. The progressive nature of the tax is hard-coded in the high bracketing. It doesn't even touch the bottom 80% of the population. $100k, for example, will buy you as many necessities as you could reasonably need even in expensive urban areas, so it can be assumed that anything spent beyond that contained something taxable.
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That would pretty much mean that about 10% of the population would be the only ones paying taxes. That seems like a bad idea to me, for a host of reasons.

Beelzebuddy said:
[ETA]

Oh, replacing all taxes is different then. Nevermind, yeah, you probably gotta get 'em used to being taxed even while they don't have much. Still, a simpler progressive bracketing would be the way to go.

Income tax starts at $1, by the way.
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Lol, cross post- your ETA showed up in my quote box, but wasn't on the screen when I pushed the button!

I'm all for a simpler solution, I just want it to be sensible and sustainable. I think some complexity should be included, in the interest of equitable treatment and more even access to basic necessities across the board. But I'm open to anything that avoids regressive treatment of low income people and also avoid concentrating all of the revenue sources in the hands of a small portion of the population. Putting all our eggs into a really small basket has a lot of risks, from my perspective.
 
dudalb said:
OH, automation will kill a lot of jobs, no doubt about it,question is will the technology involved create new jobs to replace the jobs abolished.
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Put me on the skeptical side of that one too. From 1940-1970, the number of Americans living and working on a farm dropped from 30.8 million to under 10 million, as farmers went from being 18% of the workforce to 8.3%. Did all those people get jobs building and repairing the farm equipment that replaced them? No, of course not. But other jobs did arise, just as they will this time around.
 
Brainster said:
Put me on the skeptical side of that one too. From 1940-1970, the number of Americans living and working on a farm dropped from 30.8 million to under 10 million, as farmers went from being 18% of the workforce to 8.3%. Did all those people get jobs building and repairing the farm equipment that replaced them? No, of course not. But other jobs did arise, just as they will this time around.
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Have you ever heard of diminishing returns? Moore's Law worked in semiconductor jobs for 50 years. It no longer applies. We've also eliminated most factory positions. It is estimated that half the retail jobs will be gone in 10 years and half the truck driver positions in 15. Taxi cab jobs will also see their demise and these are just a few occupations that will disappear.

The biggest problem is not that all jobs will disappear, but the effect it will have in terms of wages. A problem that a recent MIT study has demonstrated.
 
Brainster said:
Put me on the skeptical side of that one too. From 1940-1970, the number of Americans living and working on a farm dropped from 30.8 million to under 10 million, as farmers went from being 18% of the workforce to 8.3%. Did all those people get jobs building and repairing the farm equipment that replaced them? No, of course not. But other jobs did arise, just as they will this time around.
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No they won't. Or, at least, the new jobs will be done by machines and not people.
 
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