Makes for an interesting mechanic where tax efficiency is not really about the amount of money you bring in, but peoples trust in the system. The higher the efficiency - the more you can bring in, but the less you need to (nominally) set your tax at. However, the lower the trust the higher you need to nominally set your tax, which of course only lowers relations with the people - even though they don't actually pay more.
Tax efficiency - where does the "lost" money go?
- Thread starter KonradRichtmark
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Makes for an interesting mechanic where tax efficiency is not really about the amount of money you bring in, but peoples trust in the system. The higher the efficiency - the more you can bring in, but the less you need to (nominally) set your tax at. However, the lower the trust the higher you need to nominally set your tax, which of course only lowers relations with the people - even though they don't actually pay more.
Yeh, people don't care about what you say the tax is, only what they pay. If they can't get enough to eat they will get angry.
I think it would and should come from declared tax. Just look at some tax-aversive businesses or countries today, everybody complains that the tax is too high, and everyone tries to pay as little as possible, shady dealings or not. The effect on militancy is the same (although not the effect on militancy from lacking goods, as you still have money to buy those), even though you are paying less than the nominal amount.
And one of the reasons to move west is to move away from beerocrats.
They may run Chicago, but there will never be a sheriff in Tombstone.
They may run Chicago, but there will never be a sheriff in Tombstone.
Wait, if POPs just care about how much money they are actually paying and low tax efficiency only makes them pay less, then what's the point of tax efficiency? Why would you care about increasing it if you just have to raise the tax slider to get exactly the same effect? Unless you want to raise taxes over the tax efficiency percentage, of course, but if the game is anything like Vicky 1 after you get, say, 50% tax efficiency you probably wouldn't want to raise it even more due to high MIL increases and people leaving your country. Is there any advantage at all in increasing tax efficiency once you get to the point where setting your taxes at 100% gives you the actual desired tax rate?
What I would do would be adding corruption into the game. Maybe some of the "lost" taxes should remain in the taxpayer's hands, but a big chunk of it should end in the pocket of aristocrats and/or bureaucrats (depending on your government type). And of course POPs should get the full MIL increase from the money that was stolen. Or, to make things a bit more complicated, you could add a "corruption" value which would determine the percentage of the lost money which remains in the taxpayers hands and the percentage of it which would be stolen. You could then tie this value to some of the requeriments for westernization or do further interesting things with it, and you'd decrease it by assigning money to the equivalent of Vicky's crimefighting.
Something to wish for in an expansion, I guess. At least the first part...
What I would do would be adding corruption into the game. Maybe some of the "lost" taxes should remain in the taxpayer's hands, but a big chunk of it should end in the pocket of aristocrats and/or bureaucrats (depending on your government type). And of course POPs should get the full MIL increase from the money that was stolen. Or, to make things a bit more complicated, you could add a "corruption" value which would determine the percentage of the lost money which remains in the taxpayers hands and the percentage of it which would be stolen. You could then tie this value to some of the requeriments for westernization or do further interesting things with it, and you'd decrease it by assigning money to the equivalent of Vicky's crimefighting.
Something to wish for in an expansion, I guess. At least the first part...
An idea could be that with 50% tax efficiency, only 50% of POP pay the tax. Thus, some people would be angry paying too much taxes and some would enjoy.
The tax efficiency increase would then allow you to have more balanced taxations and avoid militancy in part of your population.
The tax efficiency increase would then allow you to have more balanced taxations and avoid militancy in part of your population.
Which was basically my concern here. You want 50% tax but you only have 50% tax efficiency? Just increase tax slider to 100%.
Then I kinda figured the adminstration is probably not that evenly spread around, and as you can only set tax on national level, those Île-de-France POPs that have nice 90% tax efficiency are probably gonna be a bit pissed.
What is the real difference between 100% tax rate and 20% efficiency and 20% tax rate and 100% efficiency? There has to be a catch.
I think pjoo hit the nail. some parts of your nation, like the capital will have high efficiency, so there the poor people will feel the full weight of your taxes
It would be good if that's the way it's actually implemented, but the way I understood it from King's posts is that every POP in your country just pays 50% of what he should, making things effectively the same as if you had 100% tax efficiency and the tax slider set to 50%. Let's hope it's as you say though.
EDIT: After re-reading the DD about bureaucrats it seems that you're right. I was still thinking in old Vicky terms of a single tax efficiency value for the whole country
Also bureaucrats have other uses as well. IIRC they are supposed to be the crime fighters as well and they should influence the promotion speed of your POPs. So you basically want them te be in large enough numbers.
In the manual its says the administrative efficiency is tied to state - so it would be uneven.
The question I would have is - is there a way of evening it out? If you increase the bureaucracy slider does it favour the states with low bureaucrats or does it evenly increase bureaucrat numbers perpetuating the disparity?
But what if my country is sucky and disorganized overall? Think early Australia or New Zealand, like in that Prussia AAR.
It's a pretty simple catch, actually.
Let's say that, with 100% tax and 100% efficiency, you pull in $100.
Thus, at 20% efficiency, your range is $0-20; you cannot exceed that amount.
In the second scenario, with 100% efficiency, you have a much wider range of tax income, from $0-100.
So, in the early game, when you're inefficient, you aren't able to tax them very much. Later on, you become more effective.
Come to think of it, the catch is not in the tax rate but in the byproducts of beerocracy. Namely, crimefighting and effects of crime on society and economy.
Exactly. Tax-revenue-wise, there is no difference. Tax-distribution, there is. Plus, tax efficiency is tied to administrative efficiency, which has other uses. I'd prefer to have 100% efficiency and 20% tax rate than other way round.
Also, At 100% efficiency, you have the full control over how much money you want. At less, you might not be able to rake in enough tax money, as someone above has already pointed out.