TAXING ROBOTS ?

Prof. Xavier Oberson has given the opening lecture of the Spring Semester at the University of Geneva.

The development of artificial intelligence has a tremendous impact on all aspects of our daily life and work.

Robots are gradually replacing humans in certain sectors of the industry. This has an impact on the labor market, but also on the related tax and social security revenues.

In parallel, the need for additional state revenues to support the growing number of unemployed human workers increases.

Taxing robots could be a solution. This is the proposal made by Xavier Oberson.

In his view, the creation of an independent legal personality for robots could pave the way for taxing robots. In his presentation, he outlined the fundamental legal, economic and ethical questions raised by this proposal. He also discussed the implementation difficulties which will have to be addressed should such a new tax personality be recognized.

Xavier Oberson is Professor of Swiss and International Tax Law at the University of Geneva and Chairman of OBERSON ABELS. He is also the founder and director of the LL.M. Tax at the University of Geneva.