Bill Gates: Robots that do 'human jobs' should pay taxes

The billionaire patron made the statement during a recent interview with Quartz Editor-in-Chief Kevin Delaney. He thinks robots that are “stealing human jobs should pay their fair share of taxes” just like human labours – to maintain funding for society's welfare, reports Fox News. “Right now, the human worker who does, say, $50,000 worth of work in a factory, that income is taxed and you get income tax, Social Security tax, all those things,” he said. He believes governments should tax companies that use robots – to at least momentarily slow the growth of automation. As a result, other employments will be financed. “If a robot comes in to do the same thing, you’d think that we’d tax the robot at a similar level.” He said robot taxes could help fund projects like caring for the elderly or working with children in schools. “Exactly how you’d do it, measure it, you know, it’s interesting for people to start talking about now,” Gates said. “Some of it can come on the profits that are generated by the labour-saving efficiency there. Some of it can come directly in some type of robot tax. I don’t think the robot companies are going to be outraged that there might be a tax. It’s okay.” Quartz reported that European Union lawmakers considered a proposal to tax robots in the past. The law was rejected.