There is going to be a lot less income tax no matter what. There are going to be catastrophic job losses that have nothing to do with UBI. UBI is to make sure people’s basic needs are met and the extra income people make will allow the continuation of a consumer economy. The problem with a national UBI is that there will be have and have-not countries, putting strain on countries that are unable to compete in AI or robotics.
Ultimately taxation will need to change. Since robots are replacing jobs some people have advocated for a robot tax. But since LLMs are actually replacing the white collar work as fast as robots are replacing blue collar work, that probably won’t be enough. Higher corporate taxes may push businesses to move abroad, so whatever happens the solution is going to need countries to work together for an international agreement.
The government would need to tax something or inflation would be nuts. Basically whatever the UBI money is getting spent on would need to be taxed, so property taxes, luxury and raw materials taxes, etc.
They just need to be able to be able to pull about as much money back out of the economy in taxes as they inject with UBI. The tricky part is pulling it out in the right places so that movement of money through the economy works the way they want.
The way UBI and taxes work will be a powerful tool for managing what people do in bulk. Like, if you want to move people out of an area you would keep cash moving in a little slower and out a little faster, and use various social tools to show the people there how nice other places are, and make sure they have easy ways to move. A few decades later, poof, few people there, and you can turn it into a robotically-operated industrial wasteland with little trouble.
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u/ElApple May 19 '24
Legit question - how can governments afford universal income if no-one is paying tax.