Governments should tax capital, not labor, as AI makes human work less central to the economy

With a vastly more productive economy, but much less demand for labor, society would have to rethink the social safety net to ensure that the gains from unprecedented economic growth are shared rather than concentrated among a small group of capital ... more Unverified source (2026)

The tax code in the US and many other countries places a heavier burden on firms that hire labor than on those that invest in algorithms to automate work. [...] Policymakers should aim to create a more symmetric tax structure, equalizing marginal tax... more Unverified source (2026)

[The] Digital Dividend [...] is a small universal cash benefit financed by a tax on the digital sector, and serves as a scalable pathway toward higher unconditional income support, should economy-wide job scarcity materialize. The Digital Dividend st... more Unverified source (2026)

If we go down this path of destroying jobs [and] creating more inequality, U.S. democracy is not going to survive. [...] We may need wealth taxes, because anything else we do today is still going to lead to this huge wealth gap that exists in this co... more Unverified source (2026)

We somehow have to have a way of — when AI agents replace people — doing what Bill Gates has suggested recently. We have to have a way of taxing the AI agents, so there's still a tax base. Unverified source (2026)

If we face a future where capital appreciation is abundant and labor income is scarce, perhaps it's time to consider reducing taxes on labor and increasing those on capital gains. Unverified source (2026)

Policymakers could rebalance the tax base by increasing reliance on capital-based revenues—such as higher taxes on capital gains at the top, corporate income, or targeted measures on sustained AI-driven returns—and by exploring new approaches such as... more Unverified source (2026)

As computational resources expand, wages converge to the opportunity cost of computational resources required to reproduce human work, and the share of labor income in GDP converges to zero. Unverified source (2026)

We need to extract a pound of flesh from these data centers. [...] I've thought for a long time there's an obligation from the industry to help figure this out and help pay for it. [...] The easiest place to extract the pound of flesh is probably goi... more Unverified source (2026)

AI threatens to erode the first pillar—taxes on labor—by reducing demand for human labor across many occupations. [...] The main burden of taxation will have to shift away from labor. Unverified source (2026)

We have to fix the tax code's anti-human bias. Robots get accelerated depreciation, while hiring humans comes with payroll taxes. Unverified source (2026)

This is a technology which basically enables a computer to replace the thought of millions of people and then delivers their salaries to the person who owns the computer. Unverified source (2026)

AI capabilities will allow us to make far more goods and services with less labor. [...] Even if the transition takes longer than I expect, we should use 2026 to prepare ourselves for these changes — including which policies will best help spread the... more Unverified source (2026)

While privatisation and private equity asset-strip material wealth, cloud capital goes about asset-stripping our brains [...] if each of us is to reclaim ownership of our individual minds, we need to collectively take ownership of cloud capital. Unverified source (2026)

For most of the last 40 years, the jobs and wages of blue-collar Americans were eroded by globalization and computer software, and most of the benefits from productivity gains went to the richest 10 percent. AI is now putting the jobs of millions of ... more Unverified source (2026)

If AI leads to a transformation, where the labor share goes down by a lot more and the capital share goes up by a lot more, you can't run the kinds of programs you're running, in terms of entitlements, without having a higher capital income tax. It's... more Unverified source (2026)

Fiscal policies can support [AI investment and innovation] by strengthening tax systems and by funding research, reskilling, or sector-based training programs. However, tax systems should not encourage automation at the expense of people. Likewise, e... more Unverified source (2026)

What we must recognize is that we created a system where workers don't have much bargaining power. In that kind of world AI may be an ally of the employer and weaken workers' bargaining power even more, which could increase inequality even more. [...... more Unverified source (2026)

The idea is to make this worker centric; we have to focus on people. [...] It can't be on rate payers, homeowners, and small businesses to pay for the infrastructure for a big business that ultimately is going to be making billions of dollars on this... more Unverified source (2026)

Early gains are flowing to the owners of models, owners of data and owners of infrastructure. What happens to everyone else if AI does to white-collar workers what globalization did to blue-collar workers? We need to confront that today directly. It ... more Unverified source (2026)

AI will transform economies and need a rethink of capitalism & equity. Labor portion of economy (vs capital) will decline sharply. Should we eliminate preferential treatment of capital gains tax and equalize to ordinary income? [...] Could easily eli... more Unverified source (2026)

We're going to be in a position where we want to shore up labor in every quarter, in every organization and environment. We should actually try to stop taxing labor, and instead start taxing AI. I just came from an AI conference out west, and holy co... more Unverified source (2026)

If AI creates huge total wealth, a lot of that will, by default, go to the AI companies and less to ordinary people. So, you know, it's definitely not in my economic interest to say that, but I think this [a tax on AI companies] is something we shoul... more Verified source (2025)

Robots don't need a wage, health care, time off, sick leave, Social Security, Medicare or unemployment benefits. The same handful of oligarchs who have rigged our economy for decades are now moving as fast as they can to replace human workers with wh... more Unverified source (2025)

We've really been very unbalanced in how we tax labor and capital. Let's level the playing field and not favor entrepreneurs putting people out of work by replacing them with capital. Unverified source (2022)

When the rate of return on capital exceeds the rate of growth of output and income, capitalism automatically generates arbitrary and unsustainable inequalities that radically undermine the meritocratic values on which democratic societies are based. ... more Unverified source (2013)

Capitalism has also depended on somewhat of a power balance between labor and capital, but if it's hard in many of our current jobs to outwork a GPU, then that changes. [...] If there was an easy consensus answer, we'd have done it by now, so I don't... more Unverified source (2026)

Higher taxes on capital income reduce the return on investment, weakening firms' incentives to invest in AI infrastructure, advanced equipment, and productivity-enhancing technologies, which in a global environment where countries such as China are a... more AI Verified source (2026)

I think quality homes in good locations will be extremely valuable. Those could be taxed more. You could call that a wealth tax, but arguably it is closer to a "housing services tax". [...] You could put higher consumption taxes on items the wealthy ... more Unverified source (2026)

Why pick on robots? [...] I don't think simply trying to resist or stop technology is a viable strategy. I don't think it would be a viable strategy if it was adoptable on a global basis, but it's even less viable for a single country in internationa... more Unverified source (2017)