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Ameek Ashok Ponda wrote an essay titled "Back to the Future for Taxation," published in the Summer 2025 issue of Daedalus, the journal of the American Academy of Arts & Sciences.

In this futuristic piece, Ameek writes from the year 2075, looking back on how taxation evolved—and why the old systems collapsed. He delves into various aspects of this imagined future, including: 

Taxation: More than Revenue

  • Taxes don't just fund governments—they shape behavior.
  • For decades, income and consumption taxes ruled. By 2075, they had been replaced by something very different.

The Age of Two "Money Machines" 

  • Income taxes and consumption taxes were wildly effective at raising revenue.
  • They spread globally after the Cold War as part of the West's economic "secret sauce."
  • Governments stuck with what worked—until it no longer did.

Man vs. Machine: An Uneven Playing Field

  • Advances in AI and robotics blurred the line between human and machine labor.
  • Tax rules favored machines, fueling inequality—until a new principle emerged: humans deserve the same tax deductions as machines.

When Deductions Took Over

  • Once human expenses (food, shelter, clothing, education, medicine, etc.) became deductible, the taxable base for income and consumption taxes disappeared.
  • Only luxury spending and large savings remained taxable—affecting a small few.

From Broad Bases to Targeted Taxes

  • In place of the old system came excise taxes—targeting harmful activities like pollution, overfishing, deforestation and poor health choices

Aligning Incentives with Well-Being

  • Today's taxes are designed to raise revenue and price in the real cost of harm to people and the planet. 
  • It's a return to basics—modernized for the 21st century and beyond.

About the Author:

Ameek Ashok Ponda is a Tax Law Partner with Sullivan & Worcester LLP, Boston, Adjunct Professor of Law at the Boston University School of Law, Lecturer on Law at the Harvard Law School, Board Chair at Tax Analysts (publisher of the Tax Notes series of periodicals), and Vice President of the American College of Tax Counsel. His future self, with the benefit of fifty years of hindsight, authored this piece in 2075 CE during a snowy week in Stowe, Vermont.