Amadeo Fuenmayor analyses how automation impacts the labour market and proposes a tax on robots as a way to sustain the welfare state.
Amadeo Fuenmayor analyses how automation impacts the labour market and proposes a tax on robots as a way to sustain the welfare state. The unstoppable advance of robotisation and artificial intelligence is transforming the labour market, putting on the table a debate of enormous relevance for the future of tax systems: should robots pay taxes?
Amadeo Fuenmayor, senior lecturer at the UV and researcher at EvalPub, reflects on this question in the latest issue of Temas para el Debate magazine. In his article, he highlights how human labour continues to be the mainstay of the welfare state, since labour income accounts for nearly 50% of national income and generates most of the public revenue via personal income tax and social security contributions.
However, progressive automation threatens to weaken this source of income. According to Amadeo Fuenmayor, one possible response would be to tax robots through new forms of taxation, which would not only maintain the financing of public services, but also redistribute the benefits of automation.
The article even raises the possibility of robots acquiring legal personality and being taxed in the same way as companies. An idea that, although it may sound futuristic today, is already beginning to generate concrete proposals in the academic and political spheres.