The technological race among industry giants and the wave of layoffs they have announced has revived the debate about the advisability of taxing automation
Tax productivity, not work. Worker productivity has skyrocketed in the past few decades, but taxes have remained constant. So the rich have been able to extract increasing amounts of productivity, while paying proportionally less and less in taxes. Meanwhile, worker wages have remained stagnant, meaning their productivity has gone up but they’re still being paid (and taxed) the same.
Wealth taxes should still absolutely be a thing, but they should be entirely divorced from a work (productivity) tax.
Tax wealth, not work
Tax land in particular. Can’t hide land easily from tax office.
Tax productivity, not work. Worker productivity has skyrocketed in the past few decades, but taxes have remained constant. So the rich have been able to extract increasing amounts of productivity, while paying proportionally less and less in taxes. Meanwhile, worker wages have remained stagnant, meaning their productivity has gone up but they’re still being paid (and taxed) the same.
Wealth taxes should still absolutely be a thing, but they should be entirely divorced from a work (productivity) tax.
That sounds great, but how would you objectively quantify productivity
How much did a company spend to product the widget?
How much is the widget worth?
The difference of those two is productivity