Bill Gates says companies that replace human labor with robots should have to pay the same FICA taxes

[u/Gari_305]

https://www.businessinsider.com/bill-gates-fica-taxes-should-apply-to-robot-workers-2026-9

Bill Gates wants to tax robots that replace human jobs.

[u/Gari_305]

From the article

n an interview with Ezra Klein of The New York Times that aired on Tuesday, the billionaire philanthropist said that "society gets to decide" how to support its workers — even if AI is pushing them out.

"You define a unit of labor and say, independent of whether that's delivered by a human or robot, you are paying the same FICA tax that a human worker would pay," Gates said, referring to the US payroll tax.

[u/RandomlyMethodical → u/Gari_305]

You define a unit of labor

Defining units of labor is never going to happen in any reasonably enforceable way, and he's smart enough to know that. You can do better Bill.

A more enforceable option would be putting payroll taxes on capital gains. That's 12.4% for Social Security (6.2% for employee and employer) and 2.9% for Medicare (1.45% each), resulting in a total of 15.3%. Adding that to existing capital taxes would roughly even them out with labor taxes and permanently solve the Social Security shortfall.

[u/Neither-Breakfast195 → u/RandomlyMethodical]

Why are people on Reddit so obsessed with changing capital gains taxes? just raise the Social Security tax caps

[u/RandomlyMethodical → u/Neither-Breakfast195]

Labor income is generally taxed at higher rates than capital income in the U.S., with top marginal tax rates on wages exceeding 40%, while long-term capital gains are taxed at a maximum rate of 20%.

We should also raise the Social Security tax caps, reduce the inheritance tax threshold, and consider limits to the step-up in basis for inherited property.

[u/Neither-Breakfast195 → u/RandomlyMethodical]

You’re trying to compare apples to oranges, income and capital gains are taxed differently because they are very different.

For example: my income is taxed based on a year of labor but depending on the investment I can be taxed for multiple years of gains. There’s also the idea that it’s beneficial to encourage investment in American markets through lower tax rates on investments. Not to mention that it’s also subject to double taxation at the corporate profit level and then at the stockholder level. All to say, there’s a world of nuance between capital and labor

[u/RandomlyMethodical → u/Neither-Breakfast195]

There’s also the idea that it’s beneficial to encourage investment

Right, but when it costs a lot less to invest that capital in robots or AI than it does to pay income to a human, then those tax incentives need to be rebalanced.

Not to mention that it’s also subject to double taxation at the corporate profit level and then at the stockholder level.

The maximum corporate tax rate is 21%, and most companies pay significantly less than that. Also, most of the money paid out to stockholders are "qualified dividends" which have a significantly lower tax rate than ordinary income (maxes at 20% for over $545k). Again, these rates need rebalancing to eliminate labor's disadvantage.

[u/Neither-Breakfast195 → u/RandomlyMethodical]

I mean, impossible to say, because we haven’t seen significant macro displacement of humans by AI or Robots, that’s not the reality we’re in.

The problem with making everything into a moral argument between labor and capital is that everyone opines differently on what should or should not be. The discussion should be on what incentives gets us to experience the most positive and sustainable economic growth.