機器人代工算漏稅嗎？

機器人代工算漏稅嗎？

與人類勞動者相比，機器人至少有一個不公平的優(yōu)勢：不用繳所得稅。

測試中可能遇到的詞匯和知識：

socialist社會主義者；社會黨黨員['s???(?)l?st; 's????l?st]

make a fortune發(fā)財，賺大錢

automation|自動化；自動操作[??t?'me??(?)n]

levy征收；征兵，征稅['lev?]

fray爭論；打架[fre?]

Bill Gates calls for income tax on robots（419 words）

By Richard Waters in San Francisco

Robots have at least one unfair advantage over human workers: they do not pay income tax.

Bill Gates,co-founder of Microsoft and the world’s richest man,thinks that should change. It is an idea that until now has been associated more with European socialists than tech industry leaders,and puts him in the unusual position of explicitly arguing for taxes to slow the adoption of new technology.

Mr Gates made his fortune from the spread of PCs,which helped to erase whole categories of workers,from typists to travel agents. But,speaking in an interview with Quartz,he argued that it may be time to deliberately slow the advance of the next job-killing technologies.

“It is really bad if people overall have more fear about what innovation is going to do than they have enthusiasm,”he said.“That means they won’t shape it for the positive things it can do. And,you know,taxation is certainly a better way to handle it than just banning some elements of it.”

The idea of using taxes to support people put out of work by automation has been catching on in the tech world,but Mr Gates went further,pushing for a direct levy on robots that would match what human workers pay.

“Right now,the human worker who does,say,$50,000 worth of work in a factory,that income is taxed and you get income tax,social security tax,all those things,”he said.“If a robot comes in to do the same thing,you’d think that we’d tax the robot at a similar level.”

The extra money should be used to retrain people the robots have replaced,Mr Gates said,with“communities where this has a particularly big impact”first in line for support.

Some politicans have also joined the fray. Benoît Hamon,France’s Socialist candidate in this year’s presidential elections,has called for a tax on robots to fund a minimum income for all.

Some tech leaders have hinted that the tech companies’customers — rather than the industry itself — should foot a higher tax bill. In a recent interview with the Financial Times,Satya Nadella,Microsoft’s current chief executive,said:“Whenever somebody cuts cost,that means,hopefully,a surplus is getting created. You can always tax surplus.”

Mr Gates echoed that suggestion,though he also struck a more radical stance with his levy on the machines’producers.“I don’t think the robot companies are going to be outraged that there might be a tax,”he said.“It’s OK.”