Machines paying into Social Security: what's being proposed

Making machines pay: from the SGAE levy (Spanish collecting society) to the Japanese precedent

Every time automation takes a step forward, the same proposal returns: that machines pay Social Security contributions. Computers, forklifts, printers and industrial robots would pay as if they were workers. The idea is associated with left-wing governments, and in Spain it is discussed in a country with industry in decline and a gross operating surplus that a forum user puts at 8%, the figure that opens the debate. For some it is the way to share what robots produce; for others, the fastest way to freeze productive investment.

The two sides do not argue only about economics. They argue about what a machine is, how much each one weighs in the income statement, and whether the pension system can withstand what it already has.

What exactly is proposed and who would it affect?

In its hard version, the tax would reach any equipment that replaces human labor: from a welding robot to the computer that manages billing. The problem starts there. Where is the limit that separates a computer from a robotic arm or a machining center? If two machines connect to each other, do they count as one or as two?

The calculations circulating are not optimistic for small business, according to those who reject the tax. It is argued that multiplying the social costs of companies that declare everything would punish industry above all, while rental or labor-intensive services would continue with a comparatively lower burden. The consequence outlined is simple: less factory and more tourist construction.

How many jobs a machine replaces: the impossible boundary

The most widespread proposal does not tax the device, but the labor it saves. If a machine leaves three workers out, three contributions are paid; if two such machines are coupled, six. It sounds orderly until you try to apply it.

A practical case: a company installs a machine that lays off three people, then grows and buys more efficient equipment that retires the previous one. The new machine does double the work, but does it still replace three? Productivity also rises, and with it the number of units produced per head. The system invites the creation of an office to decide how many jobs each contraption equals, and that office does not exist.

The other objection points to the heart of the matter. An excavator already replaced twenty men with shovels in the seventies, and nobody put excavators on the payroll. Current prices are already adapted to that reality. Taxing machinery now would force the cost to be passed on to the price tag, with the consumer paying twice.

The Japanese precedent and the photocopier levy

There is a precedent told with concrete numbers, and it does not come from a Spanish ministry. According to a participant who attributes it to an MBA professor, when the Japanese automobile industry began to robotize its plants, some companies calculated the amortized labor and paid the corresponding contributions for a time. Eight operators welding in four shifts replaced by just one operating the robot resulted in 28 fewer jobs. The penalty, according to this account, was applied only when automation destroyed net employment; if workers were relocated to another process, there was no surcharge.

The other mirror cited is more domestic: the SGAE levy, and some wonder if you still pay for having a photocopier, whether you use it or not. A revolutionary tax, they call it. In the UK a fee is paid for each television or device with which to watch the BBC; in France and Ireland it is charged per antenna, in Italy per receiving set, and in Germany each household pays a fee even if it has no television. The logic would be the same: taxing the physical medium regardless of its performance.

Who keeps productivity and why the tax is demanded

The underlying argument is distribution. It is stated that the 1% of the population accumulates 63% of global wealth and that current prices are more than triple those of twenty years ago. With those figures, technification without social counterpart ends in a society of unemployed people without money to buy what the machines produce. Someone has to consume, and an unemployed person does not consume.

Against that, the liberal response is that wealth does not disappear, it redistributes to countries that do automate without obstacles. The scenario described is not that of a revolution, but of pogre impoverishment: when someone is sought to claim from, there will be no rich person nearby to compensate for the loss.

Why the robot tax already exists under another name

There is a shortcut that is repeated: taxing machinery is raising corporate tax. And corporate tax, when it squeezes, is answered by moving production to another jurisdiction. Automation is not stopped by decree, it only changes country.

Meanwhile, contributions no longer cover pension spending by a long shot: the State transfers money each year from other taxes to the Social Security fund. That transfer existed before anyone talked about robots, and neither side explains how it is sustained if the workforce keeps shrinking. There the analysis gets stuck: there is no figure that matches the number of machines with the number of contributors that will be needed, nor a date when that account stops adding up.