kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Or you could assume that tax is bundled into the ship payments already.
I would say invoke taxes where it makes for a story, otherwise assume it's baked into the costs already.
Traveller and Taxes
- Thread starter DanDare
- Start date
Or you could assume that tax is bundled into the ship payments already.
I would say invoke taxes where it makes for a story, otherwise assume it's baked into the costs already.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Technically, if you have it on loan, it's not your Scout.
Maybe a local licence to operate space vehicles.
Maybe a local licence to operate space vehicles.
Back in high school I tried penalizing my gaming group by levying taxes on them. They had accumulated something like three ships, a few high energy weapons, and so forth. In my judgement they were just way too powerful, so I tried to hit them in the pocket book.
It didn't work, and all I wound up doing was pissing off my players. I never did that again.
It didn't work, and all I wound up doing was pissing off my players. I never did that again.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
Career pathing; if they start accumulating they draw attention, and then they have to decide if they want to do some empire building, you know, level nine in Dee Ann Dee.
And if you impose diminishing returns, give them some foreshadowing like it happening to some known non player character.
And if you impose diminishing returns, give them some foreshadowing like it happening to some known non player character.
I'm ashamed to admit that having done the one mistake that Marc Miller actually warned against in black in white in the big black book (with the blue trimmed dust jacket) and penalized the players. I then actually upscaled the adventures, and in a sense made them somewhat more abstract.
They had a Kinunir class frontier cruiser, and I forced the pilot to make a saving throw against ... what did I do ... a combination of turbulence and being under fire from a Type-T. It was a fail.
Have you ever seen a Kinunir tumble across an ocean surface like the Lifting body in the opening credits of the Six Million Dollar Man?
p.s. the moral of tale being that beware of Referees bearing gifts
, or, pay your taxes!
They had a Kinunir class frontier cruiser, and I forced the pilot to make a saving throw against ... what did I do ... a combination of turbulence and being under fire from a Type-T. It was a fail.
Have you ever seen a Kinunir tumble across an ocean surface like the Lifting body in the opening credits of the Six Million Dollar Man?
p.s. the moral of tale being that beware of Referees bearing gifts
, or, pay your taxes!I've always seen taxes in any RPG as being like going from the US to Canada to attend a Con and sell in the Huckster Room. The border folks are just downright nasty in collecting their G&S on everything before you enter the country and it's up to you to inventory everything you don't sell and file the forms after you leave. It tends to make traders do some smuggling, and as has been pointed out, leads to adventure seeds.
For those not engaging in commerce, it's like going to a Con in a foreign country, you pay the taxes when you buy and I just assume that the taxes are a part of the total price.
For those not engaging in commerce, it's like going to a Con in a foreign country, you pay the taxes when you buy and I just assume that the taxes are a part of the total price.
Sorry kilemall, I was continuing the discussion about how a 1% wealth tax is particularly onerous. And as such the cost is way more than the given costs.
I'm just giving a Traveller example of how bad a 1% wealth tax would be. I could have used any ship class and I would be talking about the cost to the legal owner. If the legal owner is getting hit with a 30,640 Cr tax bill every month you can be sure they would pass that on to whoever was using the ship.
Taxes might better be considered for different types of society.
For example an actual feudal system uses taxes to fund the nobility and their armed forces and to keep different tiers of society at appropriate wealth levels. They didn't tax folks that moved in and out of jurisdictions but they then got them to pay tolls when the could.
OTOH a modern socialist system uses tax to redistribute wealth to generally flatten inequalities, and all sorts of negotiations between jurisdictions occur to deal with the movement of wealth.
Each of these, and others, can be used to create all sorts of interesting role play situations for enforcement, tax dodging schemes and what ever.
For example an actual feudal system uses taxes to fund the nobility and their armed forces and to keep different tiers of society at appropriate wealth levels. They didn't tax folks that moved in and out of jurisdictions but they then got them to pay tolls when the could.
OTOH a modern socialist system uses tax to redistribute wealth to generally flatten inequalities, and all sorts of negotiations between jurisdictions occur to deal with the movement of wealth.
Each of these, and others, can be used to create all sorts of interesting role play situations for enforcement, tax dodging schemes and what ever.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Understood. However, my other points remain.
3000 Cr is just 3 tons of freight or 3 low berths, spread over an average of two trips a month.
I don't know that a fair valuation has the ship operator paying all of that if the ship is not owned free and clear (perhaps the fraction of the ship that is considered 'paid off', whatever those terms are in people's TUs).
That tax would incentivize people to sell off ships they in the same way car dealers are incentivized to sell off cars in the US at the end of the year to avoid paying tax on inventory. Public policy to promote 'highest use' and lower stresses on the trade system (although a lack of variable freight and passenger rates suggests a certain amount of government intervention in interstellar commerce anyway).
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
Thought of a plot driver mechanism using ship taxation- Tax Liens.
That is where an investor covers delinquent taxes to keep up funding to a polity, and gets paid back when the taxes are collected, either with late fees/penalties or the property/fiscal instrument is seized and sold at auction or possibly become the lienholder's.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ising-18-returns-may-be-case-of-buyer-beware-
Here's the Traveller twist- the planet that is collecting the ship tax do not go hunt down the ship, the people who bought the lien do. The tax collection is effectively privatized.
They become effectively state sanctioned repo privateers, legally authorized to recover the ship and return it to port of registration/taxation, and get their compensation by the percentage of the ship sale they get after the investor/bank gets their primary sunk investment back (effectively 50% of the remaining mortgage).
It's not an opportunity to turn a 30,000 Cr tax lien buy into 30 MCr of ship, but should still work out to multiples of the investment after sunk chase/acquisition costs.
Of course the delinquents, once they are about to be captured, may choose to scuttle as a final act of defiance. Getting the ship back in valuable condition is going to be tougher then just pirating cargo or blowing up an enemy.
So this could play into player actions in one of three ways-
That is where an investor covers delinquent taxes to keep up funding to a polity, and gets paid back when the taxes are collected, either with late fees/penalties or the property/fiscal instrument is seized and sold at auction or possibly become the lienholder's.
http://www.bloomberg.com/news/artic...ising-18-returns-may-be-case-of-buyer-beware-
Here's the Traveller twist- the planet that is collecting the ship tax do not go hunt down the ship, the people who bought the lien do. The tax collection is effectively privatized.
They become effectively state sanctioned repo privateers, legally authorized to recover the ship and return it to port of registration/taxation, and get their compensation by the percentage of the ship sale they get after the investor/bank gets their primary sunk investment back (effectively 50% of the remaining mortgage).
It's not an opportunity to turn a 30,000 Cr tax lien buy into 30 MCr of ship, but should still work out to multiples of the investment after sunk chase/acquisition costs.
Of course the delinquents, once they are about to be captured, may choose to scuttle as a final act of defiance. Getting the ship back in valuable condition is going to be tougher then just pirating cargo or blowing up an enemy.
So this could play into player actions in one of three ways-
- The players could have bought a tax lien and are now looking to gain their profits by seizing the ship, or hired by the people who bought the lien to do the deed.
- The players could be delinquent themselves, or wrongfully assigned that due to a clerical error/bribe, and now have to fend off a very motivated investor/repo crew.
- The players could have invested in the ship and paid the taxes to avoid a tax lien sale/auction, or bought the tax lien to circumvent a proxy fight with their previous fellow investors/ship operators, get the rights to at least recover their investment, and are now out to get what is theirs back.
VAT?
Timerover51
SOC-14 5K
Well, that would be one way for the wealthy to avoid paying a significant amount of taxes. I am not sure how the majority of citizens would like it though.
If you take the capital costs of a fleet, multiple that by about 1.5 or so, you will have the operating costs, per year, of the fleet. All of those nice shiny battleships do need to be kept up and the crews fed, and trained, and recruited, and paid, along with all of the supporting unit required. How much does an Imperial Naval Yard cost to operate for a year, or a Naval Base, or a Naval Depot? Then you have the Marine operational costs on top of that. And all of those retired Scouts with those free Scout ships, that have to be replaced. For the Scouts, the recruiting costs must be pretty high, do to the poor survival rate for Scouts.
Edit Note: I should add my condolences for all those who may live and/or work in New York, and especially New York City and Yonkers
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If the vast majority of transactions in the OTU are electronic, it should be easy to collect tax just by programming the banking systems to levy X amount on each transaction.
Of course that could give rise to tax avoidance and evasion by barter and the use of cash.
This is a subject for the Pit, but the cashless or all electronic transaction society that is steadily being pushed for has some interesting consequences for personal freedoms.
Keeping it Traveller the Imperial Treasury might leave the collection of taxes on goods or trade to the banks and megacorps and to the planetary governments for their contribution to the Imperial budget.
Traders and small merchants might operate largely outside the tax net if they stick to barter and local currency. Of course if the Imperium runs the Starports then they can indirectly tax such trade through straport fees and fuel prices. On the other hand the existance of such facilities is there to encourage trade.
Of course that could give rise to tax avoidance and evasion by barter and the use of cash.
This is a subject for the Pit, but the cashless or all electronic transaction society that is steadily being pushed for has some interesting consequences for personal freedoms.
Keeping it Traveller the Imperial Treasury might leave the collection of taxes on goods or trade to the banks and megacorps and to the planetary governments for their contribution to the Imperial budget.
Traders and small merchants might operate largely outside the tax net if they stick to barter and local currency. Of course if the Imperium runs the Starports then they can indirectly tax such trade through straport fees and fuel prices. On the other hand the existance of such facilities is there to encourage trade.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
In ShadowRun, developed before crypto currency/Bitcoin, favours and parallel currencies that would be administered by criminal organizations, though I'm inclined to believe that computing power makes it more likely that the Bitcoin successors are more likely, being beyond the control of any legal or illegal organization.
Condottiere
SOC-14 5K
I also recall that currently, washing powder detergent is a store of value, until they can market disposable clothing.
kilemall
SOC-14 5K
I always figured that given the trade empire theme and extraterritoriality of starports, that the Imperium taxes planets but not starships and traders, and that no import/export tariff is charged until goods cross from the starport to planetary territory.
That way there can be a brisk trade in the sort of goods from LBB2 speculation without the overhead of taxation until they cross in or out of planetary bounds. So the smuggling opportunity is still baked in without playing Accountants In Space for the majority of merchants.
That way there can be a brisk trade in the sort of goods from LBB2 speculation without the overhead of taxation until they cross in or out of planetary bounds. So the smuggling opportunity is still baked in without playing Accountants In Space for the majority of merchants.
Maybe the Imperium does just tax planets (and megacorps).
Maybe collecting from 'individuals' who move about freely in space isn't worth the return.
Maybe...
But then again I can't think of any government that passes up an opertunity to tax anything :devil:
mike wightman
SOC-14 10K
The Imperium taxes member worlds, not its citizens.
How those worlds tax their population is up to the member world.
The Imperium maintains a utopian free trade environment to encourage trade between member worlds, the richer the world the greater the revenue generated for the Imperial coffers.
Remember megacorporations pay dividends to their shareholders, many of whom are nobles (are there any non-noble shareholders).
Subsector dukes should want to develop their worlds so that the worlds can provide more revenue for the duke and the emperor/Imperium.
How those worlds tax their population is up to the member world.
The Imperium maintains a utopian free trade environment to encourage trade between member worlds, the richer the world the greater the revenue generated for the Imperial coffers.
Remember megacorporations pay dividends to their shareholders, many of whom are nobles (are there any non-noble shareholders).
Subsector dukes should want to develop their worlds so that the worlds can provide more revenue for the duke and the emperor/Imperium.
This. The Imperium is an association of worlds and not people.
I'll also repeat for the umpteenth million time that Mr. Miller himself decanonized the TCS military budget system for use in the Third Imperium.
Robject: VAT stands for "value added tax".
... OR ...
The players buy out the tax lien on their own ship and then leave the subsector/sector/domain.
Cheers,
Baron Ovka
