Whenever I call my bank, or basically any institution bigger than Mom&Pop, AI answers the phone. He/she/it/they then grills me endlessly before connecting me to a representative, which generally involves a 20- to 30-minute wait.
That got me thinking: If AI is taking over for workers (who would otherwise answer the phone and do a zillion other chores), why not treat AI mechanisms in the workplace as any other employee and tax them?
I’m not a tax guy, so I’m not sure how this plan would work, but let’s look at how Social Security taxes work. Both employer and employee pay 6.2 percent of the employee’s income, capped currently at $184,500 in annual compensation, into something called the Old Age, Survivors and Disability Insurance (OASDI) trust fund.
Could you tax the annual compensatory value of every AI device in your workplace at the same level as what you’d have to pay an employee to do the same work? Worth a look-see.
Hey, you tax lovers, don’t stop there. You could also hit AI with a federal income tax. In that way, you could work on solving two deficits at the same time.
Just a thought, but why not tax human substitutes the same as you tax the human originals?
