FelixJames wrote:
Thanks for bringing to the surface a gameplay mechanic that isn't explicit, it's always greatly appreciated by the community! As far as my take on the tax system goes...



I've never messed with the tax rates, and have never had unhappy citizens except for when I annexed a system within the past few turns. Even then, I can typically build happiness improvements instantly with the dust buyout option (because I make enough from taxes) and bring production back up to nominal levels with no problems whatsoever.



Some people have been concerned that the taxes come out of the gross income... but it makes perfect sense to me. After all, the "government" is covering the cost of the improvements entirely. The reason governments tax profit is because corporations spend their own resources in operating costs and infrastructure improvements necessary to support their production. However, in Endless Space, the "government" is the one paying for all the infrastructure and operating costs. As such, all income made by the colonists is profit, so that's why "income" is taxed.

FelixJames wrote:
Also, I don't really see the Tax% confusion at low levels. If the default dust tax is 50% (or 1x income), then you can see why 10% tax is actually a 0.2x multiplier:



50% tax = 1x income

Divide both sides by 5:

10% tax = 0.2x income



So the above makes sense, once you know 50% is 1x income.

chef_brian wrote:
Bumping so this gets seen. It's a pretty big problem and it makes much more sense that the upgrades should have a constant figure unaffected by tax.

so.... from a system under ghost73's proposed tax reforms it should be



(dust generated - upkeep) = X

x +(x*(tax rate)) = revenue

Correct?



Example -

Dust generated = 100

Upkeep = 60

Tax rate = 20%

(100-60) = 40



40+(40*.2) = 48

Income = 48

Ghost73 wrote:


The Multiplier vs. Improvements (and how it kills them)

It can be very (extremely) bad for a player who does not understand the dust system to start building dust boosting improvements, especially at the beginning of a game when taxes are low to keep your population happy.

Let's take a look at the Careful Sweeping improvement, which gives a system +2 Dust for each explored moon at an upkeep of -4 Dust.

Most players would think they would need at least 3 moons for this improvement to have a net gain ([3x2] - 4 = 2). Wrong.

This is where the multiplier comes into play and this is what I mean when I say the tax level directly affects your dust production. Now read carefully.



At 25% tax, you get a multiplier of x0.5. So that +6 Dust you thought you were getting from the Careful Sweeping improvement on your system with 3 moons is actually +3 Dust. Now, since the multiplier comes into play before the upkeep, the improvement still costs you -4 Dust, for a net gain of -1 Dust. I'm gonna say this again: This is what I mean when I say the tax level directly affects your dust production.



At anything above 50% tax, you actually get a dust production bonus, which suddenly makes this improvement have a net positive gain in systems with just 2 or more moons. This can be very confusing because improvements are for the most part permanent, and should not have a production value based on your tax level.

Ghost73, not sure if you will see this, and I must thank you for a great post which I have studied closely, and I must say I am not an expert in this game or the game mechanics (I am studying/learning them now), but I believe that the tax system has been misunderstood

"Tax level directly affects dust production." Is not correct. It should say

< Tax level directly affects your share of dust production.> If you study the dust production on a planet and system, you will see that it remains unchanged regardless of tax rate. The system tax calculation has a line near the bottom which shows the amount of dust that "the people" keep. As tax rate increases, this amount reduces. We the player are "the government" not the people. We must pay for improvements etc ... Not the people. That line of what the people get (their share) is shown as a "loss" because you need to view this summary as the dust that the government (the player) gets. I refer to your original 35% tax picture summary on your original post. Above the second last line (tax for system), which is the loss, the amount the government loses,  because the people keep that amount, are "actual" dust figures/production. And these lines above don't change.

So to repeat. The tax calculation you see is what we the player receive, the government, and it shows both "actual" dust production (which remains unchanged) and "what share" the people get of it, which depends on the tax rate. Lower the tax, and we the government get a lesser share of it. It makes sense to me.

From what I can see, the parameter that does effect production are approval bonuses.

Reading this post has highlighted for me how imoortant it is to understand the calculations in-game. Without understanding them you are making decisions flying blind, which your post pointed out so well. Hope this helps.

Endless812

FelixJames wrote:
The government isn't "taxing itself," it is covering the operation costs for huge projects in the interest of bettering its people. Making profit isn't always the goal. If it doesn't expect its citizens to pay very much for taxes, then it may not be able to make enough of a profit to fund such projects (system improvements).



For any facility to run, a certain amount of resources need to be spent on keeping it operational. We'll use a factory as an example. It needs a power source, technicians, engineers, laborers, raw materials, a way to transport the materials to/from the facility, repairs, replacement parts, and countless other things. If the government is footing the bill for all of those things, then lowering the taxes won't change the costs for any of those components. It will mean that of what is produced, less will be taken for the government to use as profit. Again, if the government receives less income from the operation of the facility than it spends on the operation of said facility, then it will have to pay the remainder from other sources. Either way, the government assumes liability to keep it operational, and it's simply a matter of how much of the production the government gets.



(Sorry if I'm being overly repetitious.)

Oneiros42 wrote:
Well, since this thread's already been necro'd, I just wanted to know if the economic system's the same as it was when this thread was first posted? Or has it been replaced with something that's clear and understandable?

hey, i'm not playing the united empire and my tax rate is 15%. when will xenotourism agencies start making money?

hey, this time i am playing the united empire and my tax rate is 25%. when will careful sweeping start making money?

Roumain wrote:
Quite simple, but not very realistic.



What you propose is as if the empire generate the structure profits AND receive the tax (40+40*0.2).

That's creating money from nothing. Taxes never generate money, work does.