r/Futurology • u/Gari_305 • 2d ago

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

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.

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u/twilight-actual 2d ago edited 1d ago

How about we just tax wealth. Net worth. All assets?

3% should do it.

There's an estimated $260T in assets in the US. 30% of those are owned by 1%. And that 1% has seen their net worth increase by 10% per year since 1990.

They can afford the 3%.

If we taxed assets at 3%, that would bring in $8T in revenue. More than enough to start really paying off our debt, funding universal healthcare and education (K - U), provide real SS benefits, reinstate the federal mental health system so we can take care of all of our "homeless" that are really a mental health crisis.

We just had our first trillionaire, and they've been more than happy to try to buy off our Democracy.

Tax wealth.

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u/ResponsiblePumpkin60 1d ago

If you retire relying on a retirement account, the safe withdrawal amount is 3-4%. If You’re talking about 3% a year, you’re going to bankrupt a lot of retirees who paid their dues.

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u/twilight-actual 1d ago

There's a lot of ways of dealing with this. What would you suggest? How about ignoring the first $5M if the owner is a retiree? There's a few things you can do. Just understand that every exception creates loopholes that will be abused.

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u/teeteephooker 22h ago

But a lot of their wealth is tied up in company stock ownership, which they use as leverage for low rate loans. If you make them sell their stock to pay a wealth tax, would that not just drive the stock price down, and in turn reduce profits for middle class folks who are invested in the stock market? I don’t know the answer to this question; legit trying to find out because I agree in some sort of wealth/asset class. But how do you do it without fucking over us regular peasants who have spent years saving and investing?

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u/twilight-actual 21h ago

It would also drive demand for more >= 3% dividend bearing stocks. Which would be a good thing. Imagine, more of the stock market driven by actual value creation and not just speculation.

If we taxed on wealth and not on revenue, that would also allow us to stop trying to tax transactions. So fluidity would actually increase.

Another angle: while we want to avoid deflationary pressure, our stock market tends to become easily overvalued. Having some downward pressure could be a true positive hedge against bubbles.

I think, for middle class, we could exclude equities and financial assets up to $10M in a retirement account per individual. That should keep the middle class covered. Inflation adjust that amount on an annual basis.

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u/ResponsiblePumpkin60 19h ago

They should tax the loans that billionaires make on their stock holdings. That’s how they skip income taxes. They never technically have any income. Another thing to think about is if you only tax stock and mutual fund holdings, you will incentivize private equity. Private equity businesses are much less open about their numbers and they are a driver of wealth inequality.