AI Tax: Merz's Minister Wildberger Picks Up Gates Proposal

TVS News AI, editorially supervised, presents AI Tax: Merz's Minister Wildberger Picks Up Gates Proposal.

If you regularly use AI tools like ChatGPT or Gemini, you currently don't pay any separate levy on the electricity from your wall socket – but that's exactly what Federal Digital Minister Karsten Wildberger (CDU) wants to change. He is advocating for a taxation of revenues from artificial intelligence.

He didn't come up with the proposal himself: Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates had previously argued for exactly this line, according to the "Frankfurter Rundschau" – taxing where AI powers business models. Wildberger picks up the argument and brings it into the political debate as a CDU minister under Chancellor Friedrich Merz.

What this ultimately means concretely for consumers remains open. What's clear is the direction: it's about revenues from AI – not a new flat-rate levy on your next chat.

What is established so far

Wildberger's positioning is new in the Berlin debate. Gates had previously publicly floated the taxation of AI revenues – with the core idea that revenues from automated business models should be taxed where they arise. Wildberger explicitly adopts this direction, according to the "Frankfurter Rundschau".

What you can take away: It's about the provider side, not your next account – at least based on what's been made public so far.

What remains open

The most important questions are still missing – a concrete draft law, a tax rate, an effective date. So far, Wildberger is delivering a political positioning, not a finished plan. It remains unclear whether the tax is planned as a national solution or within the EU-Starling, how it would affect AI providers like OpenAI, Google, or Anthropic, and what exemptions should apply.

Best to remember: today is a mood signal, not a tax assessment. The debate is just getting started.

What this could mean for your everyday life

Concretely, nothing changes for you today. If the tax actually comes, it will hit providers first – and the question is who passes it on: higher prices for premium models, new B2B tariffs, or a surcharge on API usage. Until then, it's a "we're looking into this" from Berlin.