A disruptive proposal in Brussels: taxing work where the worker no longer exists. the risk? there will be no more money for welfare and pensions. How the tax burden will change between man and machine.
In the silent halls of Brussels, where the hum of servers often replaces the buzz of political debate, a new fiscal architecture is taking shape. The idea is as simple as it is disruptive: tax work where the worker no longer exists. THE’Algorithm-Tax it is no longer a dystopian suggestion for economic philosophers, but an accounting necessity for States that see the contribution base eroding under the blows of an automation that does not pay pensions and does not consume goods.
Europe finds itself at the center of this social experiment. If generative artificial intelligence software can replace the work of a thousand financial analysts, the value produced by that machine must contribute to collective welfare. As reported byEconomistthe resistance from Big Tech is fierce: the fear is that specific taxation on automated processes could stifle innovation, pushing companies towards jurisdictions with “zero computational friction”. However, the Financial Times highlights how without a tax levy on income from automationthe social contract risks definitive collapse.
The hidden cost of silicon and the redefinition of value
The debate thus shifts from “if” to “how”. Defining what constitutes an algorithmic work unit is the real technical challenge of the coming years. It is not a question of attacking progress, but of rebalancing the fiscal burden between human capital, which is heavily taxed, and technological capital, which enjoys almost absolute mobility. There MIT Technology Review suggests that poorly calibrated taxation could create a technological desert, but an absence of regulation would lead to a polarization of wealth unprecedented in modern history.
The direct impact on citizens’ pockets and on the future of public services is the real driving force of this proposal. If the algorithm that took your place doesn’t pay contributions, who will pay for tomorrow’s healthcare? This question, suspended between ethics and reason of state, awaits an answer that cannot be delegated to a string of code. In the end, the hum of servers will have to contribute to the noise of real life, reconnecting the value produced by machines to the fundamental need of a society that cannot live on efficiency alone.
