Tax Mechanics

[TrainWreck20]

Ok, the planetary taxes are very straight forward. The tax rate times the GDP (or whatever that first number is called) equals the tax income. The excess, if any, appears to stay at the planet. Great, np....

Now, the system and empire tax rates: I have one planet to start the game, but I cannot identify where these apply to. Changing the rate does not result in an increase or decrease in income (it must require an end turn to take effect?), so it is hard to tell what effect will take place. I am assuming the empire (or imperial...I am not looking at the screen) tac rate applies to all planets? Then what does 'system' apply to? All the planets are in systems, so this seems redundant....and you can't change it for individual systems....Are the imperial taxes charged against the GDP or against the income of the planet government (e.g raising planet taxes would indirectly raise empire income).

I am so confused

[Corentor]

I don't have all the answers but here is what I can discern.

Empire tax levels are taken on top of the taxes that are taken at the planetary level. Raising planetary taxes will not affect Imperial taxation in anyway. Imperial tax affects all planets. You can tell how much more you will make or lose per each % by looking at the top of the finance screen which tells you your bank balance and in brackets how much you make or lose for the current turn if you press the turn button.

If you figure out what system tax is, let us know.

[TrainWreck20]

Unfortunately, I have to wait until I get off work and back home to play with this stuff

I am guessing that the type of government is affecting the collection of taxes, since the 10% rate collections do not seem to correspond to 10% of ANYTHING that I can find.

Btw, this seems to apply to grants....I have grants of 142 in the 'expenses', but my one planet is receiving much less than this......

Maybe I should have been a CPA. I have this desperate need to track every AU, PP, etc. until I know how it works...then I will begin letting the viceroys take over.....

[Todd Hawks]

System Tax is collected and then spent within a system according to need (e.g. a newly colonized planet needs more money to develop fast, so it gets a bigger part of the System Tax income).

At least that's what is said about it... it's hard to test as there is no mention of it in any budget.

EDIT: All taxes are deducted from the GDP and the reason that empire wide taxes don't add up are bonuses. For example if you start a new game as human and then take the default 10% empire tax from your only planet's GDP (e.g. 1000 -> tax= 100) and apply an additional 5% on that (-> 105), you get the tax revenue in the finance ledger. I guess the 5% are a bonus of your species, race, government or something entirely else.

I really begin to hate the lack of documentation of this game. There's only so much that you can figure out yourself.

[Corentor]

Originally posted by Todd Hawks
System Tax is collected and then spent within a system according to need (e.g. a newly colonized planet needs more money to develop fast, so it gets a bigger part of the System Tax income).

At least that's what is said about it... it's hard to test as there is no mention of it in any budget.

Intresting... there is also mention in the readme about buearucracy taking a tool as money moves around. Aparently there are penalties associated with moving money between the planetary, system and imperial levels.

The readme says sometimes it may be more efficient to have a lower empire tax level, reduce the imperial grants and let the money get moved internally.

[Todd Hawks]

These penalties definitely exist. You can look them up in one of the spreadsheets in the game (I have seen them, but don't ask me where exactly or what values they where at... I *think* about 5% but it was a matrix factoring in something else (form of government probably)).

I am not sure though if these penalties get applied to tax or only to grants and the like. I guess the latter.

[CharlesBHoff]

I at one point lower all the planetary taxes down to 10 % raise the systen and Empire tax up 2 % points with no ploblen.

[Main_Brain]

I nullified the system Taxes raised Empire Tax some percent.
Overall the Tax pressure is slightly decreased.
but i still have to test the Limit of my Pop... I think 19%Planet tax is when they start to get upset..

[Corentor]

Originally posted by CharlesBHoff
I at one point lower all the planetary taxes down to 10 % raise the systen and Empire tax up 2 % points with no ploblen.

Thats a really good way of focusing production power on your less developed planets by grants. All the high GDP planets will turn over their money via imp. taxes and then the grants will only distribute them to the lesser developed planets.

Conversely it might be better in wartime to lower imperial tax and boost planetary tax so that your high GDP planets have the cash to really pump dollars into shipyards and such.

Is there a quick way to inform you viceroys across the board to increase or decrease their taxation? Or can you just adjust your system and imperial and then they will do they will adjust their taxes to make sure they get max money without unrest?

[CharlesBHoff]

This is my first game than I than just fooling around and see what happen. The game manual is so poorly written it doesnot realy help in playing the game.

[bakalov]

I am sure that the thing they call "The heavy foot of government" has big influence on the tax income, but I don't know the exact influence formulas. One is clear the smaller is its value, the better .... It represents the bureaucracy in some way.

[TrainWreck20]

Okay, as far as I can see.....

The planetary 'tax and spend' route is the most efficient. There isn't any loss in the taxing, and minimal, if any, in the spending. However, these taxes are stuck 'on planet' and cannot be spent elsewhere.

The Imperial tax is applied to all the planets, but suffers losses due to the Heavy Foot of Government. These losses can be substantial and depend on various factors, including: government type, race, random events, and techs. I think the HFOG only applies while collecting taxes, not spending, but not sure. In any case, this tax is really needed for maintaining fleets and spies, and can be used in developing worlds.

There can be 25% losses (and above) early in the game, so I am trying to keep Imperial taxes to a minimum early (first few colony ship production) and keep my home world cranking. Makes no sense to take money, lose 25%, then give it back in a grant.

I don't know much about system taxes. There is no numerical separation between system and imperial, so I do not know what the difference really is. I am guessing that the HFOG is less, but not sure. Shouldn't there be a system treasury if this was the case?

[Arnelos]

TrainWreck hit the nail on the head.

That IS the difference between planet taxes and imperial taxes. The devs made this pretty clear on the IG boards, but didn't bother to put it in the manual, the readme, or the in-game encyclopedia

[CharlesBHoff]

I find raiseing Imperial tax at some point give the imperial treasurery money which slowly increase your spending money.

[bakalov]

New opinion:

HFOG applies to the costs in PP of everything. The initial cost is multiplied by your HFOG. The only efficient way to reduce HFOG is to change your government, though this raises your unrest levels ...

The imperial treasury is always on "-" The exact sequence each turn is as follows:
1) The imperial treasury pays the money for research, military, unrest & grants.
2) If its fallen in "-" then it pays interest.
3) Then the new taxes are collected and the treasury is filled and the debt repaid.

The mechanics are that if you want to use your money from the treasury then you must be in debt. This can be seen from the "Ledger" tab at "Finances". You will see that you are paying debt interests.

The best appliance for the money from the treasury is spending them as grants for the new planets.. When your empire grows big you'll have to reduce your empire tax since the inital percent starts to generate insanely large sums and the few developing planets fail to use all these money efficiently. Why spending so much money to get x8 PP on a planet with industry value of 10 for example?

Using this money to reduce unrest is an "expensive way" to do it and should be used as last measure. I dont know how exactly the "research" and "military" money are spent. May be to increase the efficiency of all the DEAs from the corresponding type?