{"podcast":{"title":"Big Boss Interview","slug":"big-boss-interview-316999","podcast_index_feed_id":316999,"rss_url":"https://podcasts.files.bbci.co.uk/p016tl04.rss","website_url":"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p016tl04","image_url":"http://ichef.bbci.co.uk/images/ic/3000x3000/p0m4j7fr.jpg","author":"BBC","episode_count":266,"summary":"Big Boss Interview is where the most high-profile chief executives and entrepreneurs come to give you their insights and experiences of running the world's biggest and well-known businesses. The series is presented by Sean Farrington, Felicity Hannah and Will Bain, who you'd normally hear presenting the business news on BBC Radio 4's Today programme as well as BBC 5 Live's Wake Up To Money. Each week they'll be finding out just what it takes to run a huge organisation and what the day to day challenges and opportunities are. You can get in contact with the team by emailing bigboss@bbc.co.uk","last_synced_at":"2026-07-16T10:20:46.494996+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/big-boss-interview-316999"},"episode":{"title":"#46 Reed Recruitment CEO: Back Humans, Tax Robots","slug":"46-reed-recruitment-ceo-back-humans-tax-robots","published_at":"2026-06-24T23:01:00+00:00","page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/big-boss-interview-316999/46-reed-recruitment-ceo-back-humans-tax-robots","show_page_url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/big-boss-interview-316999","url":"http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/p0ntt98m","audio_url":"http://open.live.bbc.co.uk/mediaselector/6/redir/version/2.0/mediaset/audio-nondrm-download-rss-low/proto/http/vpid/p0ntt6xl.mp3","summary":"Britain should stop taxing workers and start taxing robots, according to the chief executive of one of the country's biggest recruitment firms, who says the UK's tax system is pointing in entirely the wrong direction at the worst possible moment. James Reed, CEO of Reed Recruitment, told the Big Boss Interview that the government is taxing employers who hire young people \"to pick up beer glasses in gardens\" whilst letting AI and automation — the technologies actively replacing those workers — go entirely untaxed. His mantra: \"Back humans, tax robots.\" And he wants the next prime minister and chancellor to make it the centrepiece of a wholesale redesign of how Britain raises revenue. Reed argues this is not a fringe idea but an inevitability. \"Taxation follows wealth,\" he said. \"When you see these companies being valued at over a trillion, that's where the action is. So that's where the taxation should follow.\" He envisions transaction-based levies on AI services and automation — \"rather like VAT\" — or surcharges on businesses that replace human workers with machines. He acknowledged it would \"take some designing\" but said the principle is simple: the robots are generating the wealth, so the robots should be taxed. The urgency, he said, is driven by the collision of two forces. The first is the October 2024 budget, which Reed described as a \"historic mistake.\" The £25 billion employers' National Insurance increase was, in his words, \"a tax on jobs\" that caused clients to cancel hiring within a week and has driven businesses towards automation and offshoring at precisely the moment AI makes both easier than ever. The second force is AI itself. Reed warned it is \"burning through entry-level jobs,\" destroying opportunities for young people at a pace the country is not prep…","meta_description":"Britain should stop taxing workers and start taxing robots, according to the chief executive of one of the country's biggest recruitment firms, who says t…","key_points":[],"chapters":[],"topics":[],"duration_seconds":2647,"processing_state":"not_requested","actions":[{"name":"request_transcript","method":"POST","url":"https://stenobird.com/v1/public/podcasts/big-boss-interview-316999/episodes/46-reed-recruitment-ceo-back-humans-tax-robots/transcription-requests","description":"Idempotently request low-priority transcript generation for this episode."},{"name":"read_markdown","method":"GET","url":"https://stenobird.com/podcast/big-boss-interview-316999/46-reed-recruitment-ceo-back-humans-tax-robots.md","description":"Read the agent-friendly Markdown representation of this episode resource."}]}}