Imperial revenue collection

[Hemdian]

(Most of my stuff is in storage. So, apologies if this has already been covered in a published source.)

I’ve been thinking for some time about the issue of taxation within the Imperium. With no evidence of an Imperium-wide income tax or sales tax I’ve come to the conclusion that (apart from taking a percentage of shares from a LIC) the Imperium must levy a charge on member worlds and leave it up to member worlds to raise the money in any way they see fit. Thus some worlds will have an income tax, sales tax, poll tax, and/or whatever, all paid by the locals.

That leads to my first question: would the Imperium allow customs duties? They could be seen as a barrier to trade and the Imperium is built upon interstellar trade. But then again are they really that much of an issue if individual member worlds are allowed to outright prohibit certain goods anyway?

Meanwhile, I suppose that the exact amount of the levy a member world would have to pay would be assessed by the nobility. That would be part of their function. But that assessment would have to be based on some kind of audit or survey ... which I guess would be down to the IISS. Could Scouts be looked upon by many (rightly or wrongly) as roving tax inspectors? If so they might not be very welcome in some quarters.

How do other people treat this issue ITTU? (I suspect most don’t and hope no one notices: “Pay no attention to the man behind the curtain.”)

 

[jatay3]

GT: Starports makes it clear that customs are permitted to member worlds. However they must charge all goods equally(I.E. not use it as a weapon against their local rivals), charge non-imperials twice as much(I.E. use it as a weapon against the Imperium's rivals), and not charge goods that are "just passing through" and not being traded locally(as that would obviously make trade almost as as excruciating as if the Imperium was several different polities).

Mileau 0 says that the Imperium has an automatic 2% share in all intersteller corporations. That would provide a lot of revenue for the Imperium.

 

[Blue Ghost]

When my players were getting uppity I slapped them with starship registration renewal, licensing and taxes. I can't remember what I charged... something pretty hefty, but non-progressive. It was a simple flat tax for being Imperial citizens. I think I had some tariffs or tolls for use of the spacelanes.

 

[Icosahedron]

The GT rules listed above make sense for customs duty.

Regarding Imperial Tax, I follow the rules in Pocket Empires for taxation since I use PE as an economic background for MTU, but since these don't mention any Imperial Tax (apart from an 'administration factor') I decided to levy one. I simply add 20% to the basic tax rate of every world, as a form of income tax based on each planet's Gross World Product.

 

[Seriayne]

There was that whole thing in the old Library Data on the Children of the March - a Frontier Cruiser for quarter credit lunch-money donations from all the school children of the Spinward Marches (merely deducted from the Sector's Education funds).

The implication is that there's an Imperial Education Budget, (or at least one for the Spinward Marches as a whole), maybe subsidizing various planetary schools and universities?

All sortsa weird little bureaucratic things about the Imperium at large could be inferred from that anecdotal entry.

 

[jatay3]

There was that whole thing in the old Library Data on the Children of the March - a Frontier Cruiser for quarter credit lunch-money donations from all the school children of the Spinward Marches (merely deducted from the Sector's Education funds).

The implication is that there's an Imperial Education Budget, (or at least one for the Spinward Marches as a whole), maybe subsidizing various planetary schools and universities?

All sortsa weird little bureaucratic things about the Imperium at large could be inferred from that anecdotal entry.

Likely enough, though when you get the government's subsidy you get the government's curriculum sooner or later.

On the other hand, a reasonably high TL planet should be able to pay for it's own schools and the main reason for Imperial sponsored schools would be those that train in specifically Imperial fields. A Nobles' school for instance, or an Astrogation school.

In any case education doesn't sound like the sort of thing the Imperium would get into on a large scale. That sounds more like the mindset of the first two Imperiums. The Third is less interested in the rustic doings of the local peons.

 

[JAFARR]

One of the real early computer SiFi games (basically text based with a few small graphics - May have been Galactic Tipan in one of it's computer specific versions) had each world collect a varying tax on any goods sold on that world. You soon learned what items you could sell on each world for how much. Then you did not visit the high tax worlds unless you could make mucho profit.

If you use that method, I'd cap it at 5% or less, unless you wanted to vary the rate depending on what kind of item was being sold. Necessities 2%, luxuries as high as 25%.

Personally I tend to ignore taxes unless the players get too uppity.

 

[aramis]

I count taxes as being part of annual maintenance; 10% of maintenance is registration renewals. (40% is shop fees...)

In re worlds:
I use the 1% rate for the imperial military contribution, and 1% for the bureaucracy. I add a 1% for the noble house and huscarles. Likewise, any interstellar corporation pays 1% of all share issues to the sponsoring landed imperial noble. Need to upgrade? buy back 2% of your shares, and pay them to the larger see's noble.

 

[Hemdian]

Personally I tend to ignore taxes unless the players get too uppity.

As have I, for the most part. Up until now. But I was thinking this could be a way to entangle noble PCs in local politics and add an extra 'experience' for Scout PCs.

Mileau 0 says that the Imperium has an automatic 2% share in all intersteller corporations. That would provide a lot of revenue for the Imperium.

Ignoring the one-time only revenue of cashing out, that's 2% of the dividend payments of all interstellar corporations ... which is how much?

I count taxes as being part of annual maintenance; 10% of maintenance is registration renewals. (40% is shop fees...)

It sounds like you and Blue Ghost are on the same wavelength. And definately a way to turn many PCs into taxpayers.

 

[aramis]

I've run games that were corporate focused... it was important to come up with a system...

 

[Gray Lensman]

Imperial Population

Here are some population numbers to play with if you want to tax Imperial Citizens: :devil:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070208070817/maps.travellercentral.com/imperial_summary.html

 

[HG_B]

I’ve been thinking for some time about the issue of taxation within the Imperium. With no evidence of an Imperium-wide income tax or sales tax I’ve come to the conclusion that (apart from taking a percentage of shares from a LIC) the Imperium must levy a charge on member worlds and leave it up to member worlds to raise the money in any way they see fit. Thus some worlds will have an income tax, sales tax, poll tax, and/or whatever, all paid by the locals.

Correct

That leads to my first question: would the Imperium allow customs duties? They could be seen as a barrier to trade and the Imperium is built upon interstellar trade. But then again are they really that much of an issue if individual member worlds are allowed to outright prohibit certain goods anyway?

The second part of this para is correct and explains why import duties aren't the concern of the Imperium gov.

Meanwhile, I suppose that the exact amount of the levy a member world would have to pay would be assessed by the nobility. That would be part of their function. But that assessment would have to be based on some kind of audit or survey ... which I guess would be down to the IISS. Could Scouts be looked upon by many (rightly or wrongly) as roving tax inspectors? If so they might not be very welcome in some quarters.

The amount is probably set forth in the original world treaty with the Imperium. The IISS doesn't play a role. The subsector/sector bureaucracy has a diplomatic presence/office on the member worlds to look after Imperial interests.

 

[Icosahedron]

Here are some population numbers to play with if you want to tax Imperial Citizens: :devil:

http://web.archive.org/web/20070208070817/maps.travellercentral.com/imperial_summary.html

I can't figure out what this is telling me. Either I'm having a bad morning, or the table isn't very intuitive.
Can you enlighten me?

 

[Seriayne]

I can't figure out what this is telling me. Either I'm having a bad morning, or the table isn't very intuitive.
Can you enlighten me?

It looks like its an all Imperium census collated from UPP's I think, showing total population, % of each factor (starport values, tech levels, pop, etc.) and probably working out total Imperium GNP via TCS formulae applied to those.

Stick on a 1% tax on trade or what have you and you can roughly figure out how many Tigris Class Dreadnaughts Strephy can afford.

 

[aramis]

I can't figure out what this is telling me. Either I'm having a bad morning, or the table isn't very intuitive.
Can you enlighten me?

Upper half is numbers of worlds with rating a (across top) for item b (down side).
Lower half is same mode but shows percentage of the imperial population.

So if looking at Tech Level on left indice, and G on top indice, you'll find 0% of the population, and 1 world.

 

[Gray Lensman]

I can't figure out what this is telling me. Either I'm having a bad morning, or the table isn't very intuitive.
Can you enlighten me?

Charts show # in Millions and %s of population living on those types of UWPs

Systems8896
Population10,420,990 million


or 10,420,990,000,000 Sentients to Tax

Gross Imperial Product103,196,094 billion
Per Capita GSP Cr 9,902


or GIP of 103,196,094,000,000,000 (wow)

I got these off the old maps.travellercentral.com site through the Wayback machine some time ago.

One ? I have is the meaning of GSP. Is it Gross System Product (seems too low for that) or Gross Sentient Product?

 

[Icosahedron]

Thanks for that. Obvious with hindsight, maybe just a bad morning.

Which planet has Size I+?

What is Law Level G+, I thought it topped out at F (at least in CT). Are these values from one of the other versions, and if so, what do they mean?

I take it the TL17 world is Capital?

Only 156 class X starports? Very different from MTU, but then mine isn't hemmed in by alien polities, I've got plenty of wild frontier.

 

[Gray Lensman]

Oops!

Darn, How did I manage to sneak that stuff in, didn't show when I reviewed the post. Must not had enough beer yet, lol.

Oh well, just edited the junk out.

 

[aramis]

Thanks for that. Obvious with hindsight, maybe just a bad morning.

Which planet has Size I+?

What is Law Level G+, I thought it topped out at F (at least in CT). Are these values from one of the other versions, and if so, what do they mean?

I take it the TL17 world is Capital?

Nope. Sambqys. Capital is TL F.

LLG criminalizes lots of minor infractions. Think Judge Dredd... only worse.