Taxation and collection

[DM B]

I'm not entirely satisfied with the way income is generated and distributed.

I think I'd like to see province levels generate somewhat more money that previously.

Primarily to give an incentive for keeping tax rates high - this is lost money if taxes are low (but prosperity high).

Currently it better to have less tax and high prosperity than high tax and average prosperity.

[X-Osoerde (Alan)]

Is the intention for every holding type to benefit from the income/collection increase?

[X-Haelyn's Aegis/RK (Andy)]

Err, why would high taxes be a good thing?  All that taxes do is take money from producers and give it to consumers - moderate tax and high prosperity surely should be far more productive for the province as a whole than high tax and moderate prosperity?

The aim of a competent ruler is to levy low to moderate taxes while taxing the widest possible base with minimal corruption and wastage.  A good ruler would then invest the surplus to generate future wealth but that was rare in medieval times.  High taxes are the sign of a failed leadership or dire need and should be a temporary measure at best, likely only during times of war when the populace can be persuaded to pay due to the overall gains to be won or risk of loss if the ruler can't defend them.

What is the intention?

In mechanic terms high taxes act mainly used to create a larger gap between the income of rulers and other types of regents and discourage non-rulers from co-operating with law holders - if that's the aim then taxes are certainly one way of doing it, but if the aim is to increase income from province levels then it doesn't seem the way to go since at best it just shifts money around.

[DM B]

It's not a radical change: It is an adjustment.

I want it to be a real mechanical dilemma: Do I go for higher taxes now and gold right in the pocket, or can I live with a lower tax and in time manage a higher prosperity?

Currently there is no real reason - except I've stated that the Anuirean cultural norm is heavy taxes (severe is the emergency tax) - to have anything higher than Moderate taxes.

But if I slightly increase the income from direct province taxation a ruler/law holder (presumably with few other holding types to his name) would be tempted to keep taxes at a Heavy ('normal' level).

[X-Haelyn's Aegis/RK (Andy)]

OK, I misunderstood your earlier comment about raising province level income (it's just law holder income you are referring to) and the name applied to the tax rate is throwing me - you are calling "heavy" what I'd call "moderate", it might be worth re-labelling the tiers because "fair" and "moderate" sound like the "normal" levels rather than being very light levels, that's only a problem for newbies though I guess.

In my mind a good ruler should be able to get both - levy moderate taxes and agree for support / gifts / etc from their domain regents - so both the income and the long term growth.  Of course that assumes that everyone will work towards a common good 

On a mechanic side it will make existing agreements to low / no taxation more valuable so these might need to be re-considered as renegotiating with a temple (the usual beneficiary) can be a RP issue.  That said it's a tweak not a leap from 40-50% so I don't see a big problem.

As a note, law holdings are already the "best" holdings - I'd suggest looking at their cost / action DC's as they can easily generate twice the income of any other holding type if tax rates hit the 40-50% range.  Unless of course the aim is for everyone to fight over them!

On a RP side though, it makes severe tax seem more "normal" - if everyone is normally heavy then severe is the boeruine/etc type "normal" and severe is routine for anyone in a war (which is much of the time) with crippling then fairly common during times of duress.  I note that it also appears a very heavy "norm" - tax rates of 10-20% were typical until the last couple of centuries, although that was based on income rather than surplus, it does however make expansion fairly irrelevant for non-rulers if the ruler creams off the bulk of any profits from the non-ruler's efforts - I'd expect the ruler to be expected to contribute towards any growth action by a local non-ruler since they will get the bulk of the benefit so non-ruler activity might reduce significantly unless they can grab law holdings.

[X-Ghieste & HOT/GH (Matt)]

I note that the "in game" version of heavy taxation bears no relation in % of GDP that we would expect in a modern heavy taxation regime, partly because a medieval society is less advanced in resource allocation/utilisation and because the mechanics of the period state do not allow for significant tax revenues in terms of production levels.

Andy - I also note that that is one political position; there are others too, depending where you fall in economic ideology

[X-Haelyn's Aegis/RK (Andy)]

I note that the "in game" version of heavy taxation bears no relation in % of GDP that we would expect in a modern heavy taxation regime, partly because a medieval society is less advanced in resource allocation/utilisation and because the mechanics of the period state do not allow for significant tax revenues in terms of production levels.

I looked at the last few centuries because those are the earliest that I have reliable figures for, times long past medieval of course.  In general though, as I think we both agree, a wealthier society can endure more taxation and waste (classing military power and political pomp as "waste" which is of course an extremely modern perspective ) which puts rates lower as a proportion of income for society as a whole in medieval times.  Tax as a percentage of margin (i.e. income after subsistence level) is more debatable, as obviously in some times some castes have had no significant retained margin.

There is of course the question of "what is tax" in medieval times with (amongst many many others) fees for milling (with a legal monopoly for the lord) service of 'x' days, fines for low-quality ale & sex out of wedlock, etc, etc - the various lordlings took a "nibble every edge of the pie" approach rather than the modern position of going for one big slice in cash but I think that a simplistic "whatever the lord gets" is the optimal definition for our purposes.

Andy - I also note that that is one political position; there are others too, depending where you fall in economic ideology

It may be subject to political debate, but it's not actually a political position - political systems fiddle at the edges and with definitions but at the most basic if people gain nothing from their labours then on average they are less productive (taking account of any expenditure on people required to "encourage" their activity), the political systems claiming to have fixed this "problem" tend to have failed quite spectacularly over the long term.

[DM B]

Possible solution:

- Ideal provincial income remains the same (i.e. the square of the province level, assaumng max holding levels and no other modifiers). So a province 5 will be worth 25 Gbs/turn.

- Province/holding income is based on a divisor of 6, rather than 5. So each holding level will generate a little less income.

- Currently each of province, manor, temple, guild, trade generats an equal amount of income. Under the new scheme the province counts double.

- Taxes are reduced; heavy tax now claims on 30% (istead of 40%). Other rates changed accordingly; light only collects 5%, fair 10%, moderate 20%, and so on.

The net result is that province taxation becomes slightly more valuable (since they count double, they are now worth 2/6 of the province rather then 1/5). Holding rulers are not penalized: Net income is almost identical (small variations only, tenths of gold bars max).

The math is a little more complicated (not much) but it's handled by the P&H anyway, so no problem there.
Updating the P&H is also easy since we have moved to the new standarized format (thank Sarimie!).
No more money is generated.

Comments appreciated!

[DM B]

I'de made a small spreadsheet that shows the old vs. new values.

You can even play around with the divisor and tax rates.

[X-Coeranys/WD (Greg)]

I like what you are trying to do here.  Conceptually it seems like a nice improvement.

[DM B]

I think so too

A side-effect is a somewhat greater 'income loss' (I've no better term for it) in that the untaxed part of the province income is lost:

Previously it would be 1/5 provincial income * 0,60 (for heavy taxes). Now it is 2/6 * 0,7 for (heavy taxes).

Law holdings also become slightly less good a generating income:

30% of 6/6 is 10% less than 40% of 5/5!

Which A) should encourage the law holder to keep up taxes and B) slightly reduce the power of the slightly over-powered law holding.

All in all I'm liking it, but I'm still considering the ramifications.

ATM I'm convinced it's a move in the right direction, but I'm not 100% sure this is the correct implementation or if the actual tax and income figures are the right ones.

[X-Osoerde (Alan)]

Effectively a 10% global hit to income.

I think l would take a very close look at realms like Diemed and Roesone and ensure that the 10% hit, in combination with their existing no-taxation schemes, doesn't make the realms too difficult to play.

[DM B]

30% of 4/6 vs. 40% 3/5

Not so bad perhaps?

[X-Osoerde (Alan)]

Diemed example:
4/6 = .6666667 * 30% = .2
3/5 = .6 * 40% = .24

The scheme confers about 17% less income.

Roesone example:
5/6 = .833333333 * 30% = .25
4/5 = .8 * 40% = .32

This is about 23% less.

[DM B]

Yes, that was my point (however badly written): Diemed suffers LESS than a domain without tax exception.

Thanks for the feedback btw: This overall loss of income is not something I'm, entirely happy with.

Alternative schemes:

- Holding income unchanged. Province income doubled (effectively 6/5 income). Results in richer domains.
- Holding income reduced. Province income increased even more (effectively 7/6 income). Domains are nearly unaffected.