I've been thinking about how the United Terran Republic and the later Terran Empire work as governments in my Visions of Empire setting. One of the main topics is that of taxation - how do the governments finance themselves and their many expenditures?
For the Terran Empire, what I had in mind was a system of Imperial Monopolies - each of the nine Great Houses had a monopoly granted to it by the Emperor over one important good or service. For example, House Solana had a monopoly on manufacturing jump drives; no one else was allowed to manufacture jump drives or their unique components, and while everyone was allowed to produce ships at any A or B class starport, they all had to buy their jump drives from House Solana*. Similarly, synaptic (or should I call these Positronic) robot brains were sole monopoly of House Chiang. Having such a monopoly allowed the controlling House to exact high prices for their goods (which were later reflected in the prices of other goods requiring the monopoly goods for manufacturing and transportation). From these mega-profits, the Great Houses financed local (subsector) government and their own Colonial Fleets and Colonial Armies. Out of these profits, also a certain percentage was due to the Emperor himself in return for the Imperial Monopoly, thus funding the Imperial Government. There might also be certain other indirect taxes, and possibly property taxes, but the main Imperial and Great House revenue came from monopoly profits and similar economic rents.
As per the good ol' UTR, it had a much bigger military and a much heavier governmental system, and no such monopolies, so my gut instinct is to give it an income tax, maybe even the income tax (and corporate tax for incorporated companies) being the only tax, and being quite progressive at that. The problem is that this will needlessly complicate the CT trade rules. One solution is to make small trading starships tax-exempt - a massive incentive by the government for people to go out and become independent traders to help build the interstellar economy.
What do you think?
* Of course, in later Imperial days when the monopolies completely abused their total control of the markets and prices were atrocious, smuggling alien J-Drives from neighboring polities was common on the Frontier, and for example the Broken Tooth tribe (of the Cicek) made a fortune of selling "Solana Approved" J-Drive space parts to Terran worlds on the border of Cicek space.
For the Terran Empire, what I had in mind was a system of Imperial Monopolies - each of the nine Great Houses had a monopoly granted to it by the Emperor over one important good or service. For example, House Solana had a monopoly on manufacturing jump drives; no one else was allowed to manufacture jump drives or their unique components, and while everyone was allowed to produce ships at any A or B class starport, they all had to buy their jump drives from House Solana*. Similarly, synaptic (or should I call these Positronic) robot brains were sole monopoly of House Chiang. Having such a monopoly allowed the controlling House to exact high prices for their goods (which were later reflected in the prices of other goods requiring the monopoly goods for manufacturing and transportation). From these mega-profits, the Great Houses financed local (subsector) government and their own Colonial Fleets and Colonial Armies. Out of these profits, also a certain percentage was due to the Emperor himself in return for the Imperial Monopoly, thus funding the Imperial Government. There might also be certain other indirect taxes, and possibly property taxes, but the main Imperial and Great House revenue came from monopoly profits and similar economic rents.
As per the good ol' UTR, it had a much bigger military and a much heavier governmental system, and no such monopolies, so my gut instinct is to give it an income tax, maybe even the income tax (and corporate tax for incorporated companies) being the only tax, and being quite progressive at that. The problem is that this will needlessly complicate the CT trade rules. One solution is to make small trading starships tax-exempt - a massive incentive by the government for people to go out and become independent traders to help build the interstellar economy.
What do you think?
* Of course, in later Imperial days when the monopolies completely abused their total control of the markets and prices were atrocious, smuggling alien J-Drives from neighboring polities was common on the Frontier, and for example the Broken Tooth tribe (of the Cicek) made a fortune of selling "Solana Approved" J-Drive space parts to Terran worlds on the border of Cicek space.