Scott and Jeff are joined by Rita de la Feria @delaFeriaR to discuss her new paper (co-authored with Maria Amparo Grau Ruiz) called "Taxing Robots". The abstract of her paper reads in part:
"In recent years, the idea of taxing robots has been progressively gaining momentum. The potential impact of automation on employment, and consequently on income tax revenues, has led many to defend the introduction of a tax on robots, or on the use of robots, to either compensate for the potential revenue loss, or to slow down the process of automation. This paper argues that whilst automation presents significant challenges to tax systems, the introduction of a new tax on robots –or on their use– is not an effective mechanism through which to address these challenges."
We discuss the idea of taxing robots, whether the tax is different from a tax on other types of capital investment, the behavioral motivations for a desire to tax robots, and other issues.