Hacker News Board Hacker News, browsed like a classic message board
Live data from Hacker News

If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

english.elpais.com

Post reply on HN
Print view View original

251–260 of 1001 posts

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#251

Post by the_real_cher »

doener wrote: post #184

No, not the AI. Just the owner of means of production like AI. The fact that capital owners successfully avoid contributing to the financing of our states and social systems is, in my view, one of the fundamental problems of our time.

I'm all for raising taxes is on the rich but the government is extremely fiscally irresponsible.

The current interest on our national debt is greater than our military spending.

So if you increase taxes some people think it would just be throwing it into the money fire of Washington.

There needs to be a lot of changes in D.C.: term limits in congress, citizens united needs to be repealed, erc etc

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#252

Post by ceejayoz »

the_real_cher wrote: post #251
doener wrote: post #184

No, not the AI. Just the owner of means of production like AI. The fact that capital owners successfully avoid contributing to the financing of our states and social systems is, in my view, one of the fundamental problems of our time.

I'm all for raising taxes is on the rich but the government is extremely fiscally irresponsible. The current interest on our national debt is greater than our military spending. So if you increase taxes some people think it would just be throwing it into the money fire of Washington. There needs to be a lot of changes in D.C.: term limits in congress, citizens united needs to be repealed, erc etc

> The current interest on our national debt is greater than our military spending.

For quite some time, my mortgage interest was larger than my principal.

That didn’t make it fiscally irresponsible.

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#253

Post by ben_w »

Wildgoose wrote: post #241
ben_w wrote: post #222

Earlier quoted context omitted.

> I think I'd favor a "personal allowance" model similar to income tax, where you get the first X units of energy tax free and then have to pay VAT, carbon taxes etc. on the rest of it. I can see why this is tempting, but I think there's a better way to legislate with this, especially with that poster child. I'm a landlord of a flat. I used to live in it before I left the UK. The EPC rating is D, so despite the doubl…

The current minimum EPC rating is D. The legislation to raise it to C hasn't been dropped, they just haven't decided exactly what date it will take place. And it's stupid legislation because many old properties cannot be sensibly raised from D to C, and these are the properties (e.g. terraced housing) which are typically rented out. So, we have a housing crisis with too few properties available to rent and the legisl…

There's a lot of not-joined-up thinking in the UK government. Has been for ages.

Like, the housing crisis in the UK, there's a lot of empty houses, they're just in places with no jobs, could encourage employers to go there, but HS2 mumble mumble. Could build more houses, but greenbelt, and existing homeowners like the house prices going up, and lots of builders were Polish and oh look Brexit.

Right now, winter fuel allowance is literally burning money because the houses are not good enough. This is also not sensible.

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#254

Post by elnatro »

No. It doesn’t make sense. Should we charge taxes to our dishwasher? People, especially non-technical people, seem to be embellished by the words “AI” and forget that that’s not more than a mathematical and computational process that seems like an intelligent being.

Funnily enough, the leader of the Sumar political party (junior member of the socialist government) was ridiculed by her words about AI (some weeks ago):

https://www.elliberal.cat/2025/11/19/yolanda-diaz-hace-el-ri...

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#255

Post by jaccola »

rimbo789 wrote: post #250
jaccola wrote: post #90

Earlier quoted context omitted.

This is utterly backwards and your false statement leads to a completely wrong set of inferences. We don't let corporations do anything because they provide value through jobs and taxes. What company do you know that exists (beyond transiently) solely by paying taxes and employing people? Companies are an extension of the individual, they exist to make money for the individuals that own them so that those individuals…

Corporations don’t provide goods or services: people inside them do. Corporations are a legal structure we allow to exist because it enables jobs and taxes. Corporations don’t have to exist; they are a creation of society and thus can - and I think obviously- should be changed

Not even remotely true; corporations as we would recognise them today pre-date the legal system as we would recognise it today (and have existed in just about every legal system since).

Certain configurations of the corporation are described in our laws, e.g. "limited liability".

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#256

Post by etothepii »

nairboon wrote: post #214
Terr_ wrote: post #132

Earlier quoted context omitted.

Taxing wealth is much harder on a practical and algorithmic level than taxing income. But either way, taxing the tool is micromanaging the problem, and some powerful people cynically promote that because they can aim the details away from themselves.

> Taxing wealth is much harder on a practical and algorithmic level than taxing income. I find this argument somewhat unconvincing. Where is most of the wealth? In hard assets, such as real estate and financial assets, such as stocks and bonds. The former are very difficult to hide, for obvious reasons. As for the latter, the ownership of every single share is recorded in large databases (e.g. DTCC, Clearstream and E…

It really comes down to valuation.

The unit of account for tax is the currency of the relevant sovereign. Most contracts for income are denominated in that unit of account, even if it is not there is often a highly liquid market (FX) between units of account.

Most wealth is not stored in assets where the unit of account is that of the sovereign. This counts double for assets with a physical location.

This isn't something that can be easily hand-waived away.

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#257

Post by veunes »

dns_snek wrote: post #221

It feels really alien to discuss this in terms of "taxing AI", like an economic abstraction completely breaking down. Ultimately when you take automation to its logical conclusion we have people with needs and we have machines and automation capable of meeting those needs with minimal human labor. No matter how you try to resolve this economically, it should hold that if something can be produced with minimal human l…

The end game you're describing (abundance with minimal labor) only works socially if we deliberately redesign distribution, not just production

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#258

Post by HPsquared »

cubefox wrote: post #243
epolanski wrote: post #172

Interesting how this argument is only popping now that technology is threatening white collar workers. Automation has been shoving blue collars out of the job market for a century. A single farmer can do with his machinery today what took a dozen of people just 50 years ago. Manufacturing has been super automated long ago. Even in commerce automated checkout has been replacing workers for more than a decade. In any c…

It's dangerous but not pointless. If we get human mass unemployment, someone has to pay for them, and if the companies offering the AI sit in the US, most countries won't be able tax OpenAI & Co directly.

If anything, US AI companies will be eating the lunches of workers from all over the world. It'll be like a service export.

Re: If AI replaces workers, should it also pay taxes?

#260

Post by veunes »

epolanski wrote: post #172

Interesting how this argument is only popping now that technology is threatening white collar workers. Automation has been shoving blue collars out of the job market for a century. A single farmer can do with his machinery today what took a dozen of people just 50 years ago. Manufacturing has been super automated long ago. Even in commerce automated checkout has been replacing workers for more than a decade. In any c…

I think the current debate is less about whether automation happens and more about where the gains go
Post reply on HN