“Britain could raise new taxes on Amazon, Facebook and Apple to give every citizen under the age of 55 as much as £10,000 in a form of universal basic income (UBI), according to a study, helping to counter the growing risk of job losses from automation and artificial intelligence,” Richard Partington reports for The Guardian. “The Royal Society of Arts is proposing that the government develop fresh taxes on tech firms, introduce wealth taxes, or borrow money from the financial markets to create a Norwegian-style sovereign wealth fund to pay for UBI.”
“The idea from the thinktank led by Matthew Taylor, who recently carried out the landmark review of employment and the gig economy on behalf of Theresa May, builds on the concept of providing citizens with a UBI as a solution to the mass unemployment that could result from robots replacing workers,” Partington reports. “Last month, the RSA warned almost half of people in the UK have less than £1,000 saved and that almost a third are at risk of a financial shock, such as from automation – showing the need for changes to the tax regime as a catalyst for more state funding.”
“The thinktank said financing a sovereign wealth fund with taxes on capital wealth of individuals or global companies would cut the state’s reliance on income tax and national insurance,” Partington reports. “It said the model would complement welfare policies such as housing and disability benefits by supporting living costs.”
Read more in the full article here.
MacDailyNews Take: In our experience, when anything is given away for “free,” it’s devalued. Devaluation would seem to be a problem, especially when it comes to money.
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Bill Gates wants to tax ‘job-killing’ robots – March 27, 2017
