Percent taxes

Everyone hates percent taxes but with the decline of players, it makes it easier to keep players in a town.(Not getting kicked out due to lack of funds.) Should more towns use this system of only percent res tax with no plottax to keep their towns large?

 

Or they could just go tax free like Dreamcraft and Dax; case closed.

 

Not every town had millions in their bank, it costs a lot to go tax free...

 

Optimal Tax Rate: 100%, comrade.

 

XD

 

I'd like to see some more discussion on this.

Some towns are comfortable with going tax free (I assume either because their daily upkeep is less than 8k and can be sustained with voting or they have other mostly regular forms of income). I personally want to have enough extra that the town can maintain roads/parks/extra buildings without needing to fear that it will go under. I look at the town like a business (this is an economy server after all), you need to at least keep it in the black - but ideally there needs to be some profit to fund expansions to make the town self-sustaining. I don't see the point of "tax free" towns where they only survive by the good graces of people who donate.

So there are really a few options towns have:

1. Tax-free: PRO(s): no taxes! residents are never kicked from town or their plots; minimal need for clearing plots / CON(s): unsustainable except with non-automatic donations; constant need to expand town for any new residents
2. Plot tax only: PRO(s): no resident taxes! residents are never kicked from town / CON(s) can eventually lead to breaking Meep's rule against having more residents than plots (unless the town has a rule that residents with no plot will be kicked after a certain amount of time); considerable need for clearing or relisting vacant plots
3. Percent resident tax + set plot tax: PRO(s) sustainable; residents are never kicked from town / CON(s): can eventually lead to breaking Meep's rule against having more residents than plots; considerable need for clearing or relisting vacant plots
4. Set resident tax + set plot tax: PRO(s): sustainable and easily calculable revenue/loss; residents are kicked from town when they run out of money (therefore the plots/resident ratio rule is never broken) / CON(s): residents have to pay taxes (but if you're active and vote, the tax amount is nearly negligible); residents are kicked from town when they run out of money; considerable need for clearing or relisting vacant plots

I didn't even bother analyzing resident tax only since it just doesn't make sense to me. Maybe some town does it... but whatever.

The way I see it, option 4 is the best option because it is the most self-sufficient and business-like. I think people pick the tax-free option because they like having a large town (attractive to be tax free for new residents) and/or it makes them sad to see residents disappear, but I don't know how it's really sustained except by their own large balances.

Thoughts? Discussion?

 

With my towns I would always go tax free but I spent a lot of time recruiting, making money, and kicking residents that didn't meet a standard to have a high quality town. I thought I pulled the max amount of entertainment from the server that way.

 

This mentality would keep you busy. So I can see the allure. Especially since you should theoretically be able to recruit and keep a lot of residents.

 

Complete Opposite Of What Actually Happens

 

It being %tax

 

Remind me to take you on a tour of Dreamcraft some time. It has an upkeep of more than 50k per day with around 150 residents, and plenty of empty houses for new residents. Did I mention Dreamcraft also has its own nation? Why do we go tax free? Because, we're not into Towns to make a profit, but to just enjoy the pleasure of building. Every single house is custom coordinated to flow smoothly with the ones nearby. The land is also terraformed to compliment the building styles.
Point is, we aren't into Towns for any kind of economic positives, but for the enjoyment of the game. The town staff is fully capable of funding the town's requirements for ages. I know I speak only of Dreamcraft, as I am not familiar with Dax. Ask @Jwarian about that.

 

Again these towns have millions in their bank, thorns like mine(Mooville) don't even have 1 million in their bank. It rarely makes profit but does bring upkeep down a bit.

 

Dax is big too, but they've had to initiate embassy tax due to the sheer upkeep and size of the town

 

And how much money is in the Dax bank?

 

Percent taxes, theoretically would need either High percentages, or Rich people, the thing with rich people is they can hide money in Alts, alpha town banks, etc. Also, I would say about 60-80% of the large beta towns residents are inactive, and aren't making more money, If there was a large scale shift to percentage taxes these towns would need to recruit even more viciously than they are now. I took a 3 day break from meepcraft, and in those 3 days the once proud town or hyrule dropped from 100 to 87 people, and its not just hyrule. I've seen this happen numerous times. Basically it would lead to towns being less stable, town staff (the succesful towns staff already spend many hours on a day) having to be more active and more aggressive when recruiting, large towns collapsing in on themselves. It would suck.
What I have seen be succesful is a plottax and a 0.01 or 0.1 percent tax on the resident tax, this is highly effective as It per plot you make a profit, and inacitve players who have long since lost there plots continue to give your town meebles.

 

They have millions in their banks because the town staff funds them. None of them rely on donations. Don't even try acting like Mooville is small; as your very signature shows your nation as the largest.

 

He wasn't saying it was small, He was saying that it wasn't ridicoulously rich. however @Twomoo you funded your nation from town profits, saving up to 2.5mil, I remember that lol.

 

Only 30mil now, but it was at 75mil 4 months ago

 

A great idea is to have farms n stuff that your residents make money from, while you make an amount similar to taxes to pay for your upkeep. You get money to cover upkeep, your residents get easy money, and you don't have to have taxes to stay afloat.

 

When Stalin find Meep.