Help a fellow mayor in financial crisis?

[Promethian]

I usually play around with the fiscal policies of the city. If you're strapped on cash and RCI demand is high, you could try increasing taxes a little it to offset the costs. However, don't increase tax for the sake of balancing your budget. Reinvest the earnings into roads to build more zones. Then, you can reduce the amount of tax a little to increase demand back up.

Actually if you are providing services good enough to get residential/orifices to max level you can increase taxes with no real downside. Assuming of course you don't go crazy with it. I usually end up at 11 or 12% once I have all services built up in a mature city.

 

[28rommel]

Actually if you are providing services good enough to get residential/orifices to max level you can increase taxes with no real downside. Assuming of course you don't go crazy with it. I usually end up at 11 or 12% once I have all services built up in a mature city.

Once all my services are built-up in my mature city, I find that I usually can get away with 12 and 13% tax rates.
Citizen Happiness seems to be a good indicator/clue on what rate you can get away with (Click the Info Views button, then Citizen Happiness).
If Citizen Happiness is in the 90 percentile range, you can set this group at a tax rate of 13% (in my city, this is Office and Industrial).
If Citizen Happiness is in the 70 percentile range, you can set the tax rate at 12% (my Commercial).

My overall Residential group is in the 70 percentile range. But my (sub-group) High-Density Residential (HDR) must be slightly "happier" than my Low-Density Residential, because I can set my HDR tax rate at 13%, whereas my LDR must stay at 12%.
This could mean that Citizen Happiness in the 80 percentile range, can also accept a (higher) tax rate of 13%.

Note: I'm not positive if there is an actual and direct correlation between Citizen Happiness and tax rates, but it seems to make some sense in my city's situation.

 

[MN121MN]

Actually if you are providing services good enough to get residential/orifices to max level you can increase taxes with no real downside. Assuming of course you don't go crazy with it. I usually end up at 11 or 12% once I have all services built up in a mature city.

For mature city, fiddling with the rates are much easier. But for new development, it could mean a sluggish growth (which might be beneficial in some cases, since it could reduce future death wave), or a significant growth. I normally opt for much faster growth in the beginning, then after having a nice income with the backbone of the basic services in play, I reduce the tax rate (since the RCI by this time would usually be flat 0).

My overall Residential group is in the 70 percentile range. But my (sub-group) High-Density Residential (HDR) must be slightly "happier" than my Low-Density Residential, because I can set my HDR tax rate at 13%, whereas my LDR must stay at 12%.
This could mean that Citizen Happiness in the 80 percentile range, can also accept a (higher) tax rate of 13%.

Note: I'm not positive if there is an actual and direct correlation between Citizen Happiness and tax rates, but it seems to make some sense in my city's situation.

I think it makes sense that happiness and rates are related. Is there actually a downside to unhappy cims? I only recall lower productivity.;

 

[28rommel]

... Is there actually a downside to unhappy cims? I only recall lower productivity.;

Cities Skylines Wiki has a full page on how Happiness affects your city.
Here is a direct link to the page : http://www.skylineswiki.com/Happiness

 

[MN121MN]

Cities Skylines Wiki has a full page on how Happiness affects your city.
Here is a direct link to the page : http://www.skylineswiki.com/Happiness

This is actually fascinating. It seems that tax income is correlated with happiness, and suggests that happiness has a cause-effect relationship with tax income. However, happiness itself is supposedly increased by having jobs and being able to goods and/or services. It shouldn't make sense if we talk in the context of income tax as is, that happiness should be correlated with the amount of income taxes collected (supposedly they are correlated if we model tax dodging in-game, but we know that's not true). Yet, if we take the view of having sales tax and/or VAT, then it makes sense that there seems to be a relationship between tax income and happiness, in which both are affected by the ability to buy goods and/or services.

 

[Promethian]

This is actually fascinating. It seems that tax income is correlated with happiness, and suggests that happiness has a cause-effect relationship with tax income. However, happiness itself is supposedly increased by having jobs and being able to goods and/or services. It shouldn't make sense if we talk in the context of income tax as is, that happiness should be correlated with the amount of income taxes collected (supposedly they are correlated if we model tax dodging in-game, but we know that's not true). Yet, if we take the view of having sales tax and/or VAT, then it makes sense that there seems to be a relationship between tax income and happiness, in which both are affected by the ability to buy goods and/or services.

I believe the connection is in leveling the buildings up. Happy zones level up and we obviously know high level buildings pay more taxes.

 

[Nyanako]

You're citizens can live with 11 per cent taxation rate without bitching; some will live with 12; however you'll start getting complaints. My strategy is - Build roads starting from a central round-about connecting to the highway, on one side industrial, on the other residential. You don't need more than one or two rectangles for the industrial area, and spend the rest of the money on roads in the residential area. Do this till you're at 30k cash left. Build a powerplant, water, and pipes and electricity then use the remaining money building residential roads and then zone. You will start loosing money significantly; and may get down to 8k before the losses become manageable. When you get the first milestone; don't build a dump, don't build a hospital, the first thing you should do is raise your taxes! Then build a dump. Your city will not collapse without health and education for a few more milestones, and your unlikely to get level-ups until you unlock the second milestone.