Joseph Thorndike, “Today’s AI Taxes Have a Forgotten Depression-Era Ancestor” (Tax Notes, July 6, 2026):
Taken together, recent proposals for taxing AI can seem novel, even unprecedented — a creative response to the extraordinary pace of technological change and its rapid spread through the economy. The flurry may also reflect the staggering wealth accumulating around AI; great fortunes have always spurred tax creativity. But the debate is older than the technology.
. . . .
Nearly a century ago, in the depths of the Great Depression, many Americans landed on the idea of taxing labor-saving technology. They pressed it on Washington with a grassroots conviction that no think tank white paper can ever match.
