Opinion ·
AI is about to make our labour-based tax system obsolete!
Original title, in French: “L'IA va finir de rendre caduque notre système d'imposition basée sur le travail !”
- Publication
- Journal du Net (France)
- Author
- Jeremy Lacoste
- Published on
- 21 September 2026 · read in the page structured data
Summary
This opinion piece argues that French taxation, by weighing heavily on labour costs, makes automation through AI economically advantageous for companies. The author compares the cost of a senior executive (around 100,000 euros fully loaded) with that of a generative AI assistant subscription (2,000 to 2,500 euros per year, with no social charges). He cites the Observatoire des emplois menacés et émergents, which estimates that 16% of French jobs face a high risk of automation by 2030, and Goldman Sachs on the slowdown in job postings in exposed industries. The article proposes shifting the funding of social protection towards consumption rather than wages, to avoid penalising employment as AI use grows in business.
Summary based on the full text of the article.
Read the article on Journal du Net →Figures cited
-
16 %
Share of French jobs at high risk of automation by 2030
France, by 2030
« l'Observatoire des emplois menacés et émergents évalue déjà à environ 16 % la part des postes français exposés à un risque élevé d'automatisation d'ici 2030, soit près de cinq millions d'emplois »
Source: Observatoire des emplois menacés et émergents
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100,000 EUR
Total employer cost of a senior executive on a gross salary of 60,000 euros
France, senior executive
« Son coût total pour l'employeur avoisine 100 000 euros, une fois intégrées les cotisations patronales et salariales. »
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2,250 EUR
Annual cost of a premium generative AI assistant subscription
not specified
« un abonnement à un assistant IA générative haut de gamme coûte de l'ordre de 2 000 à 2 500 euros par an »
Classification
- Country
- France
- Company size
- Large companies, All sizes
- Industries
- All industries, or industry not specified · Software vendors, IT services companies, telecoms
- Companies
- Goldman Sachs (cited)
- Keywords
- labour taxation, automation, employment, social protection, labour costs, social VAT
Entry written by Marsanne Studio from the cited article, with the help of an AI model (claude-sonnet-5). The rights to the article and its illustrations belong to Journal du Net and its author. Entry translated from French by Claude Sonnet 5.5.