Robot Wages and the Automation Paradox... The Onslaught of the Revenue Cliff [Robo-Tax ①] (February 17, 2026)

This is a wake-up call to the Republic of Korea, which lags furthest behind the times in pension system modernization!)

Professor Anton Korinek of the Brookings Institution, in a recent report,

warned that "intelligent machines are becoming the central agents of value creation by displacing human cognitive and physical labor," and that "the existing tax framework premised on the labor theory of value has encountered a fundamental limitation."

As robots increasingly displace human workers, the labor income tax revenue collected by the state is bound to decline sharply. This represents more than a simple reduction in tax receipts — it gives rise to a "dual fiscal burden" in which social welfare demand expands while the fiscal base is depleted.

According to data from the Ministry of Economy and Finance and the National Tax Service, income taxes account for more than 30% of total national tax revenue in Korea.

Should the income tax base be eroded by accelerating robot adoption, the state's capacity to execute budgets in health care, welfare, and education would sustain a devastating blow.

(Omitted)

In particular, given the characteristics of the Korean economy — with its high proportion of manufacturing — the pace of robot adoption ranks among the highest in the world.

According to the International Federation of Robotics (IFR) 2024 report, Korea holds an overwhelming world-leading position in "robot density" — the number of robots per 10,000 workers — with a figure of 1,012 units.

(Omitted)

This triggers a chain reaction that advances the projected depletion date of the National Pension Fund and deteriorates the fiscal soundness of the National Health Insurance.

The Korea Institute of Local Finance recommended in its report that "the introduction of a robot tax should be seriously examined as a means of securing a future local tax base in response to the proliferation of intelligent robots."

(Omitted)

The report proposed that "a robot tax should not be a permanent institution, but rather a temporary buffer measure maintained only until the current generation of workers displaced by automation has been retrained or has retired."

(Omitted)

An official from the National Assembly Research Service noted that "a robot tax is not simply a tax increase measure to fill a fiscal shortfall, but rather

a fundamental inquiry into how the social safety net can be sustained amid the rapid transformation of the employment environment wrought by automation,"

adding that "a social consensus on the legal and policy design that reasonably apportions social costs within the bounds of not impeding future innovation must precede any action."

https://n.news.naver.com/article/119/0003060434?sid=101