A Taxing Dilemma: Robot Taxes and the Challenges of Effective Taxation of AI, Automation and Robotics in the Fourth Industrial Revolution

Abstract

The rise of artificial intelligence (“AI”), robotics, and automation promises to bring major dislocations in the economy, including potentially massive displacement of human workers. Those disruptions will fundamentally affect the tax system as well. Government revenues dependent on the taxation of human employment will diminish at the very time displaced workers will increasingly demand social services. One potential solution to this dilemma has emerged in the public discourse over the past few years: the tax. The concept of a tax directed specifically at AI, automation and robotics is driven by the idea that if those technologies are displacing human workers, and thereby reducing tax revenues from labor-based taxes, then the technologies themselves should be taxed. This Article examines the ways in which a robot tax could be drafted and implemented. There are significant hurdles to designing a robot tax that can feasibly be administered by tax authorities. These include defining what constitutes a taxable robot, determining the incidence of a robot tax, and minimizing disincentives to technological innovation. Attempts by legislatures to draft robot tax statutes illustrate the potential pitfalls of implementing a robot tax regime. Nonetheless, the robot tax debate plays an important role in shaping the policy discussion for dealing with the consequences of AI, automation and robotics for the tax system.