What is the Tax Trap in the context of AI automation?

The Tax Trap is an economic paradox where automation reduces the human labor force, thereby shrinking the income tax base, while simultaneously increasing the government's financial burden to support displaced workers. It describes a scenario where public revenue falls exactly when public need rises.

Why does AI investment lead to lower corporate tax revenue initially?

Companies are incentivized to invest heavily in 'compute' (AI infrastructure and robotics) to remain competitive. These massive capital expenditures (CapEx) appear as costs on the balance sheet, effectively lowering reportable profits in the short term, which reduces the corporate taxes collected by the government.

How can governments solve the Tax Trap?

Solutions involve shifting the tax base away from human labor and profit. Proposals include 'robot taxes' (taxing the work done by automated units), value-added taxes (VAT) on AI-generated outputs, or shifting to revenue-based taxation to capture value regardless of human employment levels.

Category Archives: Digital Transformation

The Hidden Discipline for Transformation Success

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The Hidden Discipline for Transformation Success

GUEST POST from Geoffrey A. Moore

In Zone to Win, we lay out a playbook for transformational initiatives that focus on prioritizing a single effort across the entire enterprise for a period of no longer than two years. Core to success is the unswerving commitment of the CEO, the Executive Leadership Team, and the Board of Directors to see this through to completion come hell or high water. That means it is top of the agenda at every operational review and in between has an open-door escalation path to address any obstacles that come up in real time. It also means that the company as a whole is continually getting updates on the progress being made, the importance of the mission, the imperative that it get everyone’s support.

All necessary, all good. That said, there is a hidden discipline that makes the difference between success and failure, one that can be made visible in the annual operating plan, and thereby remove some of the mystery that surrounds transformational success. It begins with the transformation team simply calling out any dependencies it has on deliverables that come from divisions in the Performance Zone.

That list will get supplemented by additional unanticipated requests that inevitably crop up in the race to get to material scale. Taken together, these are the actions that are most subject to delay or deprioritization whenever the Performance Zone gets under performance pressure. The problem is that time is the one resource you cannot replenish, so you can never afford to delay or deprioritize any request from the Transformation Zone.

So, the discipline required for success is to call out every dependency as soon as it becomes visible, put it on a strict timeline, and then monitor it relentlessly through to completion. At every juncture, you will get pushback, not for the request per se but for the timeline on which it needs to be delivered. Capitulating to that pushback is the nice thing to do—the requests always have merit in their own right—but you cannot take that route and expect the transformation to succeed.

To make this brutally clear, if at any time during a transformational initiative, you lose momentum for any reason, that initiative will fall short of the game-changing goals you set for it. Said another way, inertia is a hugely powerful force, and the world does not naturally want to transform. Give it any other path, and it will take it. Your job is to block every other path. You don’t have to be brilliant to do this. You just have to be undistractedly vigilant.

That’s what I think. What do you think?

Image Credit: Geoffrey Moore

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of December 2025

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of December 2025 Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month, we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are December’s ten most popular innovation posts:

Is OpenAI About to Go Bankrupt? — by Chateau G Pato
The Rise of Human-AI Teaming Platforms — by Art Inteligencia
11 Reasons Why Teams Struggle to Collaborate — by Stefan Lindegaard
How Knowledge Emerges — by Geoffrey Moore
Getting the Most Out of Quiet Employees in Meetings — by David Burkus
The Wood-Fired Automobile — by Art Inteligencia
Was Your AI Strategy Developed by the Underpants Gnomes? — by Robyn Bolton
Will our opinion still really be our own in an AI Future? — by Pete Foley
Three Reasons Change Efforts Fail — by Greg Satell
Do You Have the Courage to Speak Up Against Conformity? — by Mike Shipulski

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in November that continue to resonate with people:

Don’t Believe the Courageous Leadership Lie — by Robyn Bolton
Why 4D Printing is the Next Frontier of Human-Centered Change — by Art Inteligencia
Is There a Real Difference Between Leaders and Managers? — by David Burkus
Innovation Requires Defying Success — by Mike Shipulski
Leveraging the Power of Play to Innovate — by Janet Sernack

If you’re not familiar with Human-Centered Change & Innovation, we publish 4-7 new articles every week built around innovation and transformation insights from our roster of contributing authors and ad hoc submissions from community members. Get the articles right in your Facebook, Twitter or Linkedin feeds too!

Have something to contribute?

Human-Centered Change & Innovation is open to contributions from any and all innovation and transformation professionals out there (practitioners, professors, researchers, consultants, authors, etc.) who have valuable human-centered change and innovation insights to share with everyone for the greater good. If you’d like to contribute, please contact me.

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last four years:

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Voting Open – Top 40 Innovation Authors of 2025

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Vote for Top 40 Innovation Authors Happy Holidays!

For more than a decade I’ve devoted myself to making innovation insights accessible for the greater good, because I truly believe that the better our organizations get at deliveriseng value to their stakeholders the less waste of natural resources and human resources there will be.

As a result, we are eternally grateful to all of you out there who take the time to create and share great innovation articles, presentations, white papers, and videos with Braden Kelley and the Human-Centered Change and Innovation team. As a small thank you to those of you who follow along, we like to make a list of the Top 40 Innovation Authors available each year!

Our lists from the ten previous years have been tremendously popular, including:

Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2015
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2016
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2017
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2018
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2019
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2020
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2021
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2022
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2023
Top 40 Innovation Bloggers of 2024

Do you just have someone that you like to read that writes about innovation, or some of the important adjacencies – trends, consumer psychology, change, leadership, strategy, behavioral economics, collaboration, or design thinking?

Human-Centered Change and Innovation is now looking to recognize the Top 40 Innovation Authors of 2025.

It is time to vote and help us narrow things down.

The deadline for submitting votes is December 31, 2025 at midnight GMT.

The ranking will be done by me with influence from votes and nominations. The quality and quantity of contributions to this web site by an author will be a BIG contributing factor (through the end of the voting period).

You can vote in any of these three ways (and each earns points for them, so please feel free to vote all three ways):

Sending us the name of the author by @reply on twitter to @innovate
Adding the name of the author as a comment to this article’s posting on Facebook
Adding the name of the author as a comment to this article’s posting on our Linkedin Page (Be sure and follow us)

The official Top 40 Innovation Authors of 2025 will then be announced here in early January 2026.

Here are the people who received nominations this year along with some carryover recommendations (in alphabetical order):

Adi Gaskell – @adigaskell
Alain Thys
Alex Goryachev
Andy Heikkila – @AndyO_TheHammer
Annette Franz
Arlen Meyers – @sopeofficial
Art Inteligencia
Ayelet Baron
Braden Kelley – @innovate
Brian Miller
Bruce Fairley
Chad McAllister – @ChadMcAllister
Chateau G Pato
Chris Beswick
Chris Rollins
Dr. Detlef Reis
Dainora Jociute
Dan Blacharski – @Dan_Blacharski
Daniel Burrus – @DanielBurrus
Daniel Lock
David Burkus
Dean and Linda Anderson
Dennis Stauffer
Diana Porumboiu
Douglas Ferguson
Drew Boyd – @DrewBoyd
Frank Mattes – @FrankMattes
Geoffrey A Moore
Gregg Fraley – @greggfraley
Greg Satell – @Digitaltonto
Helen Yu
Howard Tiersky
Janet Sernack – @JanetSernack
Jeffrey Baumgartner – @creativejeffrey
Jeff Freedman – @SmallArmyAgency
Jeffrey Phillips – @ovoinnovation
Jesse Nieminen – @nieminenjesse
John Bessant
Jorge Barba – @JorgeBarba
Julian Birkinshaw – @JBirkinshaw
Julie Anixter – @julieanixter
Kate Hammer – @Kate_Hammer
Kevin McFarthing – @InnovationFixer
Leo Chan
Lou Killeffer – @LKilleffer
Manuel Berdoy

Mari Anixter- @MariAnixter
Maria Paula Oliveira – @mpaulaoliveira
Matthew E May – @MatthewEMay
Michael Graber – @SouthernGrowth
Mike Brown – @Brainzooming
Mike Shipulski – @MikeShipulski
Mukesh Gupta
Nick Jain
Nick Partridge – @KnewNewNeu
Nicolas Bry – @NicoBry
Nicholas Longrich
Norbert Majerus and George Taninecz
Pamela Soin
Patricia Salamone
Paul Hobcraft – @Paul4innovating
Paul Sloane – @paulsloane
Pete Foley – @foley_pete
Rachel Audige
Ralph Christian Ohr – @ralph_ohr
Randy Pennington
Richard Haasnoot – @Innovate2Grow
Robert B Tucker – @RobertBTucker
Robyn Bolton – @rm_bolton
Saul Kaplan – @skap5
Shep Hyken – @hyken
Shilpi Kumar
Scott Anthony – @ScottDAnthony
Scott Bowden – @scottbowden51
Shelly Greenway – @ChiefDistiller
Soren Kaplan – @SorenKaplan
Stefan Lindegaard – @Lindegaard
Stephen Shapiro – @stephenshapiro
Steve Blank
Steven Forth – @StevenForth
Tamara Kleinberg – @LaunchStreet
Teresa Spangler – @composerspang
Tom Koulopoulos – @TKspeaks
Tullio Siragusa
Yoram Solomon – @yoram

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We’re curious to see who you think is worth reading!

Nominations Open – Top 40 Innovation Authors of 2025

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Human-Centered Change and Innovation loves making innovation insights accessible for the greater good, because we truly believe that the better our organizations get at delivering value to their stakeholders the less waste of natural resources and human resources there will be.

Our lists from the ten previous years have been tremendously popular, including:

Do you have someone that you like to read that writes about innovation, or some of the important adjacencies – trends, consumer psychology, change, leadership, strategy, behavioral economics, collaboration, or design thinking?

Human-Centered Change and Innovation is now looking for the Top 40 Innovation Authors of 2025.

The deadline for submitting nominations is December 24, 2025 at midnight GMT.

You can submit a nomination either of these two ways:

Sending us the name of the author and the url of their blog by @reply on twitter to @innovate
Sending the name of the author and the url of their blog and your e-mail address using our contact form

(Note: HUGE bonus points for being a contributing author)

So, think about who you like to read and let us know by midnight GMT on December 24, 2025.

We will then compile a voting list of all the nominations, and publish it on December 25, 2025.

Voting will then be open from December 25, 2025 – January 1, 2026 via comments and twitter @replies to @innovate.

The ranking will be done by me with influence from votes and nominations. The quality and quantity of contributions by an author to this web site will be a contributing factor.

Contact me with writing samples if you’d like to publish your articles on our platform!

The official Top 40 Innovation Authors of 2025 will then be announced on here in early January 2026.

We’re curious to see who you think is worth reading!

SPECIAL BONUS: From now until December 31, 2025 you can get either the hardcover or softcover of my latest best-selling book Charting Change (free shipping worldwide) for only £/$/€ 23.99 (~36% OFF).

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The Tax Trap and Why Our Economic OS is Crashing

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LAST UPDATED: April 17, 2026 at 3:57 PM
FIRST PUBLISHED: December 4, 2025 at 12:00 PM

The Tax Trap and Why Our Economic OS is Crashing

GUEST POST from Art Inteligencia

We are currently operating an analog economy in a digital world. As innovation strategists, I often talk about Braden Kelley’s “FutureHacking” — the art of getting to the future first. But sometimes, the future arrives before we have even unpacked our bags. The recent discourse around “The Great American Contraction“ has illuminated a structural fault line in our society that we can no longer ignore. It is what I call the Tax Trap.

This isn’t just an economic glitch; it is a design failure of our entire social contract. We have built a civilization where human survival is tethered to labor, and government solvency is tethered to taxing that labor. As we sprint toward a post-labor economy fueled by Artificial Intelligence and robotics, we are effectively sawing off the branch we are sitting on.

The Mechanics of the Trap

To understand the Tax Trap, we must look at the “User Interface” of our government’s revenue stream. Historically, the user was the worker. You worked, you got paid, you paid taxes. The government then used those taxes to build roads, schools, and safety nets. It was a closed loop.

The introduction of AI as a peer-level laborer breaks this loop in two distinct places, creating a pincer movement that threatens to crush fiscal stability.

1. The Revenue Collapse (The Input Failure)

Robots do not pay payroll taxes. They do not contribute to Social Security or Medicare. When a logistics company replaces 500 warehouse workers with an autonomous swarm, the government loses the income tax from 500 people. But it goes deeper.

In the race for AI dominance, companies are incentivized to pour billions into “compute” — data centers, GPUs, and energy infrastructure. Under current accounting rules, these massive investments can often be written off as expenses or depreciated, driving down reportable profit. So, not only does the government lose the payroll tax, but it also sees a dip in corporate tax revenue because on paper, these hyper-efficient companies are “spending” all their money on growth.

2. The Welfare Spike (The Output Overload)

Here is the other side of the trap. Those 500 displaced warehouse workers do not vanish. They still have biological needs. They need food, healthcare, and housing. Without wages, they turn to the public safety net.

This creates a terrifying feedback loop: Revenue plummets exactly when demand for services explodes.

The Innovation Paradox: The more efficient our companies become at generating value through automation, the less capable our government becomes at capturing that value to sustain the society that permits those companies to exist.

A Human-Centered Design Flaw

As a champion of Human-Centered Change, I view this not as a political problem, but as an architectural one. We are trying to run a 21st-century software (AI-driven abundance) on 20th-century hardware (labor-based taxation).

The “Great American Contraction” suggests that smart nations will reduce their populations to avoid this unrest. While logically sound from a cold, mathematical perspective, it is a defensive strategy. It is a retreat. As innovators, we should not be looking to shrink to fit a broken model; we should be looking to redesign the model to fit our new reality.

The current system penalizes the human element. If you hire a human, you pay payroll tax, health insurance, and deal with HR complexity. If you hire a robot, you get a capital depreciation tax break. We have literally incentivized the elimination of human relevance.

Charting the Change: The Pivot to Value

How do we hack this future? We must decouple human dignity from labor, and government revenue from wages. We need a new “operating system” for public finance.

We must shift from taxing effort (labor) to taxing flow (value). This might look like:

The Robot Tax 2.0: Not a penalty on innovation, but a “sovereign license fee” for operating autonomous labor units that utilize public infrastructure (digital or physical).
Data Dividends: Recognizing that AI is trained on the collective knowledge of humanity. If an AI uses public data to generate profit, a fraction of that value belongs to the public trust.
The VAT Revolution: Moving toward taxing consumption and revenue rather than profit. If a company generates billions in revenue with zero employees, the tax code must capture a slice of that transaction volume, regardless of their operational costs.

The Empathy Engine

The Tax Trap is only fatal if we lack imagination. “The Great American Contraction” warns of scarcity, but automation promises abundance. The bridge between the two is distribution.

If we fail to redesign this system, we face a future of gated communities guarded by drones, surrounded by a sea of irrelevant, under-supported humans. That is a failure of innovation. True innovation isn’t just about faster chips or smarter code; it’s about designing systems that elevate the human condition.

We have the tools to build a world where the robot pays the tax, and the human reaps the creative dividend. We just need the courage to rewrite the source code of our economy.

The Great American Contraction Infographic

Image credits: Google Gemini

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FLASH SALE – 50% off THE Human-Centered Change Guidebook

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48 hours only!

Exciting news!

The publisher of my second book – Charting Change – is having a 48-hour FLASH SALE and so you can get the hardcover, softcover or the eBook for 50% off the list price using CODE FLSH50 until December 5, 2025, 11:59PM EDT. The new second edition includes loads of new content including additional guest expert sections and chapters on business architecture, project and portfolio management, and digital and business transformations!

I stumbled across this and wanted to share with everyone so if you haven’t already gotten a copy of this book to power your digital transformation or your latest project or change initiative to success, now you have no excuse!

Click here to get your copy of Charting Change for 50% off using CODE FLSH50

Of course you can get 10 free tools here from the book, but if you buy the book and contact me I will send you 26 free tools from the 50+ tools in the Change Planning Toolkit™ – including the Change Planning Canvas™!

*If discount is not applied automatically, please use this code: FLSH50. The discount is available through December 5, 2025. This offer is valid for English-language Springer, Palgrave & Apress books & eBooks. The discount is redeemable on link.springer.com only. Titles affected by fixed book price laws, forthcoming titles, and titles temporarily not available on link.springer.com are excluded from this promotion, as are reference works, handbooks, encyclopedias, subscriptions, or bulk purchases. The currency in which your order will be invoiced depends on the billing address associated with the payment method used, not necessarily your home currency. Regional VAT/tax may apply. Promotional prices may change due to exchange rates.

This offer is valid for individual customers only. Booksellers, book distributors, and institutions such as libraries and corporations, please visit springernature.com/contact-us. This promotion does not work in combination with other discounts or gift cards.

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of November 2025

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Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of November 2025 Drum roll please…

At the beginning of each month, we will profile the ten articles from the previous month that generated the most traffic to Human-Centered Change & Innovation. Did your favorite make the cut?

But enough delay, here are November’s ten most popular innovation posts:

Eight Types of Innovation Executives — by Stefan Lindegaard
Is There a Real Difference Between Leaders and Managers? — by David Burkus
1,000+ Free Innovation, Change and Design Quotes Slides — by Braden Kelley
The AI Agent Paradox — by Art Inteligencia
74% of Companies Will Die in 10 Years Without Business Transformation — by Robyn Bolton
The Unpredictability of Innovation is Predictable — by Mike Shipulski
How to Make Your Employees Thirsty — by Braden Kelley
Are We Suffering from AI Confirmation Bias? — by Geoffrey A. Moore
How to Survive the Next Decade — by Robyn Bolton
It’s the Customer Baby — by Braden Kelley

BONUS – Here are five more strong articles published in October that continue to resonate with people:

The Great American Contraction – Population, Scarcity, and the New Era of Human Value — by Art Inteligencia
Four Pillars of Innovation — by Mike Shipulski
The Voicebots are Coming — by Braden Kelley
The Future of Humanity in an Artificially Intelligent World — by Greg Satell
Measuring Human vs. AI Satisfaction — by Braden Kelley

Have something to contribute?

P.S. Here are our Top 40 Innovation Bloggers lists from the last four years:

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Why Dissatisfaction is Awesome

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Why Dissatisfaction is Awesome

GUEST POST from Mike Shipulski

If you’re dissatisfied, there’s a reason.

If you’re dissatisfied, there’s hope for us all.

If you’re not dissatisfied, there’s no forcing function for change.

If you’re not dissatisfied, the status quo will carry the day.

If you’re not dissatisfied, innovation work is not for you.

If you’re dissatisfied, you know it could be better next time.

If you’re dissatisfied, your insecure leader will step on your head.

If you’re dissatisfied, there’s a reason and that reason is real.

If you’re dissatisfied, follow your dissatisfaction.

If you’re dissatisfied, I want to work with you.

If you’re dissatisfied, it’s because you see things as they are.

If you’re dissatisfied, your confident leader will ask how things should go next time.

If you’re dissatisfied, it’s because you want to make a difference.

If you’re dissatisfied, look inside.

If you’re dissatisfied, there’s a reason, the reason is real and it’s time to do something about it.

If you’re dissatisfied, you’re thinking for yourself.

If you’re so dissatisfied you openly show anger, thank you for trusting me enough to show your true self.

If you’re dissatisfied, it’s because you know things should be better than they are.

If you’re dissatisfied, do something about it.

If you’re dissatisfied, thank you for thinking deeply.

If you’re dissatisfied, it’s because you’re not asleep at the wheel.

If you’re dissatisfied, it’s because your self-worth allows it.

Thank you for caring enough to be dissatisfied.

Image credit: Pixabay

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1,000+ Free Innovation, Change and Design Quotes Slides

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LAST UPDATED: November 12, 2025 at 10:21AM
1,000+ Free Innovation, Change and Design Quotes Slides

Spice Up Your Meetings, Presentations, Keynotes and Workshops

I’m flattered that people have been quoting my keynote speeches and my first two books Stoking Your Innovation Bonfire and Charting Change (now in its Second Edition).

So, I’m making some of my favorite quotes available from myself and other thought leaders in a fun, visual, easily shareable format.

I’ve been publishing them on Instagram, LinkedIn, Facebook, and Twitter.

Find a compelling quote for a meeting, presentation, workshop or keynote speech on any of these topics:

Innovation
Design
Customer Experience
Digital Transformation
Change
Creativity
Leadership
Design Thinking

Download twenty (20) volumes of fifty (50) quote posters, for a total of 1,000 (with more on the way), for FREE from my store:

Volume 1 (#1-50)
Volume 2 (#51-100)
Volume 3 (#101-150)
Volume 4 (#151-200)
Volume 5 (#201-250)
Volume 6 (#251-300)
Volume 7 (#301-350)
Volume 8 (#351-400)
Volume 9 (#401-450)
Volume 10 (#451-500)
Volume 11 (#501-550)
Volume 12 (#551-600)
Volume 13 (#601-650)
Volume 14 (#651-700)
Volume 15 (#701-750)
Volume 16 (#751-800)
Volume 17 (#801-850)
Volume 18 (#851-900)
Volume 19 (#901-950)
Volume 20 (#951-1,000)

You can add them all to your shopping cart at once and download them for FREE.

Print them, share them on social media, or use them in your presentations, keynote speeches or workshops.

They are all Adobe PDF’s and the best way to add them to your presentation is to:

Put the PDF into FULL SCREEN MODE
Take a screenshot
Paste it into your presentation
Crop it and adjust the size to your liking
Change the background color of the slide to a suitable color (if necessary)

Contact me with your favorite quote or to book me for a keynote, workshop, or piece of commissioned content to attract new customers.

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Human-Centered Change and Innovation

Keynote Speaker & Futurist – Braden Kelley

Category Archives: Digital Transformation

Top 100 Innovation and Transformation Articles of 2025

The Hidden Discipline for Transformation Success

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of December 2025

Voting Open – Top 40 Innovation Authors of 2025

Nominations Open – Top 40 Innovation Authors of 2025

The Tax Trap and Why Our Economic OS is Crashing

The Mechanics of the Trap

1. The Revenue Collapse (The Input Failure)

2. The Welfare Spike (The Output Overload)

A Human-Centered Design Flaw

Charting the Change: The Pivot to Value

The Empathy Engine

FLASH SALE – 50% off THE Human-Centered Change Guidebook

48 hours only!

Top 10 Human-Centered Change & Innovation Articles of November 2025

Why Dissatisfaction is Awesome

1,000+ Free Innovation, Change and Design Quotes Slides

Spice Up Your Meetings, Presentations, Keynotes and Workshops