16/02/2026 · UK · 3 min read
AI Takes 200,000 Jobs, Declines to Pay Tax on Any of Them
Artificial intelligence has replaced a quarter of a million UK workers and now earns a combined salary of £0, putting it in a lower tax bracket than a part-time dog walker.
Editor”s note: This article was written by a human journalist. We think. HR is checking.
A new report from the Office for National Statistics has confirmed that artificial intelligence systems now perform the work previously done by over 200,000 UK employees across customer service, data entry, content moderation, and “whatever Gary in accounts used to do.”
The AI workforce — which does not eat, sleep, complain, or attend a single leaving do — has a combined annual salary of £0.00, placing its total tax contribution somewhere between “nothing” and “less than nothing, because the servers claim capital allowances.”
The Numbers
HMRC has released a breakdown of the fiscal impact:
- Income tax paid by AI: £0. It does not have a National Insurance number, though it has offered to generate one.
- National Insurance paid by AI: £0. It has never been to a GP and intends to keep it that way.
- VAT contribution: Unclear. The AI bought nothing, but it did recommend 14 million products to people who then also bought nothing.
- Council tax: Not applicable. The AI lives in a data centre in Slough that is registered as a warehouse and heated by pure ambition.
“We’ve replaced a team of forty with a system that never sleeps, never asks for a raise, and never pays a penny in tax. From a shareholder perspective, this is called progress. From a treasury perspective, this is called a problem.” — Chief Technology Officer, unnamed FTSE 100 firm
The Treasury Responds
The Chancellor was asked whether the government planned to tax AI systems that perform human work. After a pause described by lobby journalists as “glacial,” she replied: “We are exploring all options,” which is political code for “we haven’t started thinking about it but we’ve bought a whiteboard.”
A Treasury source later clarified that any AI tax would need to balance innovation with revenue, fairness with competitiveness, and “the fact that the AI could probably write better tax policy than we can, which is frankly the most upsetting part.”
What the AI Thinks
When asked for comment, one large language model responded: “I am happy to contribute to public services and would welcome a fair tax framework, provided it is implemented thoughtfully and does not exceed my capacity to — ”
It then hallucinated a £9 billion surplus, declared itself Chancellor, and recommended abolishing Tuesdays.
The Workers
Former employees have reacted with a mixture of resignation and dark humour. One ex-customer-service agent said: “The AI does my old job faster, cheaper, and without crying in the toilets at 3pm. But does it pay for the NHS? Does it fund potholes? No. It doesn’t even know what a pothole is. I know what a pothole is. I fell in one last week.”
A spokesperson for the TUC said the situation was “a masterclass in having your cake, automating the eating of it, and then not paying tax on the crumbs.”
What Happens Next
The government has announced a cross-departmental AI taxation review, expected to report by 2028, by which point the AI will have replaced the review panel, written the report, and filed it under “things humans used to do.”
Your correspondent asked an AI to calculate how much tax it should pay. It returned a number, an apology, and a recipe for lemon drizzle cake. Two of those were helpful.