The proposal
The Terminator Tax in full
How the levy works, what it covers, what it raises and where the money could go.
The idea
One levy. Charged where the customer is.
A single 10% levy on the revenue that the largest groups, those with more than €750 million in worldwide sales, make from AI compute, AI services and autonomous robots. It is charged where the customer is, not where the company is based, so it cannot be dodged by moving headquarters. Startups are left out. Any country can adopt it, alone or together with others.
What is taxed
Revenue from AI compute (cloud capacity for training and running models), AI services such as model access and separately billed AI features, and autonomous robots and robotaxis, whether sold, leased or provided as a service.
What is not covered
Conventional factory machinery, pre-programmed industrial robots, IT consulting, and sales of chips and servers. The levy does not fall on investment in infrastructure.
Why a revenue tax
The big AI labs still lose money, and profits are easy to shift abroad. Revenue follows the customer. A levy on revenue, charged where the customer is, reaches the companies that profit from AI whether or not they book a profit in that country. It builds on the digital services taxes France, Italy and Spain already collect, which use the same €750 million threshold.
What a 10% Terminator Tax could raise in its first five years
€120bn
United States
€43bn
European Union
€10bn
Germany
€9bn
United Kingdom
€8bn
Japan
€7bn
France
€4bn
Canada
€3bn
Italy
Central estimates of total revenue over 2028-2032, after allowing for avoidance and for some customers cutting back. The EU figure is for an EU-wide levy; the others are for each country acting alone. In our high scenario the figures are up to twice as large.
In the EU, the levy would raise about €5.4bn in its first year and €12bn a year by 2032. From 2029 it would bring in more each year than the €6.8bn the European Commission expects from CORE, the corporate levy it has proposed for the next EU budget.
Where the money could go
Worker protection 35%
Income support, retraining and stronger bargaining for workers whose jobs are cut or reshaped.
Essential public services 30%
Health, care, education and housing, the services that hold people up through change.
Environmental repair 20%
Repairing the damage data centres do to water, land, energy grids and the climate.
Global transition 15%
Compute, power and skills for lower-income countries, so the AI economy does not open a new gap between rich and poor nations.
Budget rules rarely allow strict earmarking, so this is a political commitment, delivered through a transition fund or dedicated budget lines where the law allows.
Debunking some myths
It will drive investment away
The levy follows the customer, not the data centre or the headquarters, so moving abroad does not avoid it. Chips and servers are excluded, so it does not tax investment in infrastructure.
It will make AI more expensive
Some of it will be passed on. At 10%, prices could rise by 5-10%. But the cost of a given level of AI capability is falling 5-10 times a year, which cancels that increase out within two to three weeks.
"AI revenue" cannot be defined
Digital services taxes already define which revenue is in scope, and the major providers bill AI compute, model access and robots as separate products.
It breaks EU law
The Court of Justice has upheld turnover-based taxes on large firms, including taxes that fall mostly on foreign-owned companies, and has ruled that such taxes are not state aid.
The US will retaliate
Washington has threatened tariffs on any country that taxes American tech firms. That is why the tax works best when countries act together, and why it matters that the idea is already on the table in the US Congress itself.
Those who profit from replacing human work should pay for what makes us human.
Sign the petition