Robots To Pay "Social Security" Under EU Tax Proposal

[AvgGuyIA]

This is the kind of innovative thinking needed to adapt to new times and situations.

Your a mechist. The robot works all those years paying FICA tax and then when it's time to retire the robot, there is no way the government is going to send it a SS check.

 

[JakeStarkey]

If corporations have 'people' rights then it has duties to real people.

The tax the robot is innovative clear-headed thinking.

 

[HenryBHough]

I must concede that, from The Democrat Party perspective, leaving any thing or any activity untaxed is subversive.

 

[Montrovant]

Not really.

What defines a single robot? I could have an autonomous robot that mass produces a million widgets or one that only produces one every hour. Are you going to tax the machine based on it production? Why not simply tax the production directly then?

The idea of charging machines for social security is the height of silliness. It is simply nonsensical.

And this statement:
"having the status of electronic persons with specific rights and obligations"
is absolutely insane. Machines do not have rights. Get back to me when you make one that is self aware and THEN we can talk about conferring protected rights. Otherwise a robot has the same rights as a rock.

I'd like to use this as an example of misused vocabulary.
A "robot" can be programmed to do a required function and then can be reprogrammed to do a different function.
A "machine" is built to do one specific function and will always do that function.
In short, Robots and Machines are not the same thing. We do not need to tax escalators or hold them liable.

However, at the rate technology is moving and the time take to pass laws. Baseline laws pertaining to the liability and taxes of self-aware robots could be needed sooner than we believe.

That does not change anything I said.

I was simply putting out the information that machine and robot are not interchangable words and since you had used the interchangably, I used yours as an example. I said nothing about your statement being true or false.

Are those personal definitions of robot and machine that you are using? A machine is not necessarily a robot, but a robot is a kind of machine.

 

[there4eyeM]

Corporations are not 'people', they are 'legal persons'. That is merely a term for lawyers and courts. It does not make a corporation the same as nor equal to a human being.

 

[there4eyeM]

Some way to integrate technological developments, without detriment to the human element and without hindrance to further advances, must be arrived at. Fundamental economic revision is necessary in my eyes, but there is so much inertia involved that I am not optimistic. So, modest proposals, such as the above, may help.

 

[Picaro]

Some way to integrate technological developments, without detriment to the human element and without hindrance to further advances, must be arrived at. Fundamental economic revision is necessary in my eyes, but there is so much inertia involved that I am not optimistic. So, modest proposals, such as the above, may help.

They could have done a similar scheme with the outsourcing wave, via taxing imports to replace the revenue lost from payroll taxes, but that's another topic in itself. Such schemes as that and the one in the OP are better than caving in the entire tax base and making radical shifts and a war over who's next in the tax chain; less disruptive anyway, as a substitute for payroll taxes revenues. I'm personally opposed to payroll taxes, but they are a reality and if you're going to fund programs based on taxing wages and salaries then schemes like this are obviously necessary.

 

[Picaro]

I must concede that, from The Democrat Party perspective, leaving any thing or any activity untaxed is subversive.

Well, having read at least 11 so-called 'Fair Tax' Bills proposed, I don't see any profound brilliance coming from the Right or Libertarians either. If everybody were paying their fair share, tax rates could be a lot lower across the board for everybody, but obviously nobody wants that, on either side of the aisle; somebody else has to be mindlessly screwed over or the ideologues pout and whine. And, I remember when the cheers went up from the so-called 'Right' when Saint Ronald of Reagan slapped taxes on unemployment checks and and higher taxes on waitresses, while cutting taxes on the junk bond swindlers and Wall Street casinos, too.

 

[FA_Q2]

Not really.

What defines a single robot? I could have an autonomous robot that mass produces a million widgets or one that only produces one every hour. Are you going to tax the machine based on it production? Why not simply tax the production directly then?

The idea of charging machines for social security is the height of silliness. It is simply nonsensical.

And this statement:
"having the status of electronic persons with specific rights and obligations"
is absolutely insane. Machines do not have rights. Get back to me when you make one that is self aware and THEN we can talk about conferring protected rights. Otherwise a robot has the same rights as a rock.

I'd like to use this as an example of misused vocabulary.
A "robot" can be programmed to do a required function and then can be reprogrammed to do a different function.
A "machine" is built to do one specific function and will always do that function.
In short, Robots and Machines are not the same thing. We do not need to tax escalators or hold them liable.

However, at the rate technology is moving and the time take to pass laws. Baseline laws pertaining to the liability and taxes of self-aware robots could be needed sooner than we believe.

That does not change anything I said.

I was simply putting out the information that machine and robot are not interchangable words and since you had used the interchangably, I used yours as an example. I said nothing about your statement being true or false.

point taken.