Tax Time

At just about every robotics, automation and machine vision trade show I attend, there is talk of the impact that automation is having on society. Many will argue that such automation relieves human operators of laborious, repetitive and sometimes dangerous tasks, while at the same time increasing the quality and lowering the cost of finished goods. Others will say that such automated systems displace human operators and increase unemployment rates.

Certainly, there is some truth in both these arguments. However, for many citizens, automation has resulted in products being produced at low-cost, providing people with a higher standard of living. So it came as rather a shock when I read the opinion of Dr. William Meisel, an industry analyst with a Ph.D. in Electrical Engineering from the University of Southern California.

"The reality is that technology is eliminating many jobs through automation at a rate too fast for society to adjust," says Meisel, author of "Technically Dead" (www.thesoftwaresociety.com), a mystery with technological themes. "Mandating higher wages by increasing the minimum wage, as some politicians have suggested, does not address the core economic problem. It can even make things worse by encouraging more automation," Meisel says.

His solution? Meisel would like the government to encourage companies to create, rather than eliminate jobs by imposing an automation tax that would give them an incentive to keep people employed. "The amount that companies are taxed would be based on the ratio of employees to company revenue," Meisel says. "A company that has high revenue relative to the number of employees would pay a higher tax than a company that uses more people to generate the same revenue."

Well, I don't know about you but I dislike paying taxes. Like every major corporation, I do everything legally possible to minimize the drain on my bank account that usually occurs when I have to file taxes each year.

Unfortunately, much of Meisel's argument is, to put it politely, rather flawed. Personally, I would like to know how, for example, a company such as Coca-Cola could possibly employ people to inspect hundreds of soft drink cans and bottles every hour. Or how operators could tirelessly manipulate large car door panels on an automotive production line at Ford without the use of robots.

To impose an automation tax on such companies is obviously not the answer. Such an idea would result in the taxes being passed onto the consumer, resulting in higher prices. If such an idea were possibly ever put into practice, large corporations would flee to friendlier shores where the idea of increasing productivity would be welcomed rather than taxed.