@david_chisnall
Did not know, thanks for the explanation!

Leave it to the Brits to make it even worse... They really really like to queue, don't they?

@tante @pluralistic

VAT on AI services
The political reflex when faced with budgetary problems is always the same: raise rates. But if the tax base itself shrinks, increasing pressure on what remains yields less and less. You don't solve a tax base problem with higher rates.
Consumption taxes are the least drastic adjustment. As long as people consume, they can be taxed, even if they work less. Economists Anton Korinek and Lee M. Lockwood argued this year that VAT on AI services and levies on energy and water consumption by data centers are a more robust alternative than labor taxes. Social costs currently passed on to society would then be priced by those who caused them.
Capital taxes go further, for example, a wealth tax on AI ownership, or an additional levy on the profits companies make from owning scarce AI infrastructure. Politically challenging, but economically defensible: those with market power bear the costs of that power.
The most fundamental is public ownership. If AI systems generate a growing share of economic value, society should acquire direct stakes in the companies that capture that value. Mandatory profit transfers from platforms operating in public markets. Or a universal AI dividend, where every citizen receives a share in the public infrastructure that powers AI at birth. Norway has been doing this with petroleum for decades. There is no objection in principle to doing the same with algorithms. It sounds radical, but less radical than continuing to finance a welfare state with a foundation that is steadily eroding.
Anyone who does not face this now will pay twice later: first through lower wages, then through higher taxes.

@tante @pluralistic

Dan is er nog een derde lek.De winsten die AI genereert, landen niet automatisch in de Nederlandse of enige Europese schatkist. De waarde concentreert zich bij een handvol Amerikaanse bedrijven: OpenAI alleen al heeft een waardering van vijfhonderd miljard dollar. Winstverschuiving door multinationals kost overheden wereldwijd al honderd tot tweehonderdveertig miljard dollar per jaar aan belastingopbrengsten. Dat was vóór de AI-explosie. De EU-minimumwinstbelasting van vijftien procent is een stap, maar niet meer dan dat: ze dekt niet de constructies waarbij bedrijven winst verschuiven via licenties op intellectueel eigendom. En de VS, thuisbasis van OpenAI, Google en Microsoft, heeft de minimumbelasting niet ingevoerd. Amerikaanse AI-bedrijven betalen in Europa dus vaak minder dan vijftien procent over de winst die ze hier maken. Nederland profiteert nauwelijks van de waarde die zijn burgers en bedrijven dagelijks creëren door deze Amerikaanse systemen te gebruiken.