Taxes

Now [i:17b0my93]before[/i:17b0my93] someone tries to bite my head off, I’m just floating this one for discussion.

For a while now I’ve seen people complaining about having to raise funds for their clan by running cargo for example. I’ve been wondering why government clans don’t actually receive taxes from engineering clans on their planets and individual citizens. Correct me if I’m wrong, but there is currently no coded system for taxes other than when selling and buying cargo or selling items at pawn shops, the only way to collect actual taxes is to physically collect and donate them. So my suggestion would be implement a coded taxes system that automatically deducts and donates said funds to whichever clan is appropriate.

Now there are two means that this could be done, both of which can be implemented. Firstly, you have the engineering corporations that horde credits like no tomorrow, secondly you have the individual player. The first method I am suggesting would be to have an event once a day, for example like bank interest, for minor clans (anything but governments) that automatically deducts a set percentage with a cap limit and donates it to the government which controls the world that clan is based on. I would say a cap of five hundred thousand perhaps, purely because taking a set rate per day of a clan’s funds would very quickly bankrupt them.

The second idea, player taxes. We all pay taxes in real life, as do corporations, it makes the world go round. This idea would be somewhat harder to implement though. What I am thinking is that like paying taxes already when running cargo or selling items at a pawn shop, when a character is paid by their clan, a set percentage (at the governing clan’s discretion) is deducted and donated. That’s the easy bit, the hard part is decided which clan the funds go to and what happens if a character isn’t a part of a clan.

One way to get around this is the old idea of citizenship, which isn’t currently implemented and only really is there for RP purposes at the moment (according to the help file at least). Citizens of a world pay taxes to whichever clan governs that world at a capped rate like corporations, but what benefits does a citizen get over a character with no nationality? I’ll leave that open to discussion and suggestion but personally I think some sort of coded bonuses on the governing clan’s worlds to make being a citizen and paying taxes worthwhile, whilst making life very hard for a character with no nationality.

I thought of asking leaders of major clans about taxing engineering clans before.

It does sound fun. Quests shouldn’t be taxable, but player vendors should be, imho, and government clans could impose a weekly tax on ‘company’ clans.

There really should be more avenues for Major Government clans to passively collect revenue. Taxes are one way to do this. As it stands right now, the "tax rate" in showplanet is pretty much for show since it really doesn’t do much. Player vendors, buyship (which is not used much, if at all, anymore), Small/Large Engineering and Service Clan automatic taxation (set at a fixed rate to prevent abuse/crucifying minor clans) when their base is on a planet a Major Clan controls would all help to alleviate this a little, but it shouldn’t be something that will permanently replace active credit gathering. Instead, it should be something to supplement active revenue generation.

why does there need to be a coded system

just tax people directly