Politician Archive

My city is persusing the Industrial Society. This is expensive and we are trying hard to attract crafters to our town to take advantage of this. We have a hard 5% sales tax in place and we intend to tweak that down if we run anykind of weekly surplus in our treasury.

Someone posed the question to me, "What do you do, if someone comes to your city, becomes a citizen, places a house, intalls crafting stations, crafts in your city but sells their goods SOMEWHERE ELSE?"

This is a **edit** good question. I suppose I would use these methods:

1) Careful screening of prospective residents. If we feel that there is a possiblity that someone is seeking residency to simply take advantage of our benefits, with no intention of contributing, they are denied citizenship.

2) If a citizen decides he wants to be a "welfare crafter" and just milk us after he's a citizen, his name will be dragged thru the mud at every opportunity by every other tax paying citizen of the city. After all, he/she is only stealing from her neighbors. When someone attempts this you will be hearing it on the server forums....every day.....for as long as they remain a citizen.

3) The city militia will also be tasked with making their lives miserable until they move out. The equivalent of a 24/7 hour IRS audit, but more painful.

But #3 has me concerned. How do we attack him if we can't use the /citywarn command? Is there no "in game" mechanism to defend ourselves from this?

Please discuss.

Wouldn't it be better if you could just deny him citizenship in the first place? Right now you can't do that. Then you wouldn't need to worry about warning him (which needs to be reimplemented, of course, but for other reasons. )

~~Shabhaii, Mayor of Tombra, Naboo
www.cityoftombra.com
The REAL BT
"The FS system only rewards the Veruca Salt's of the MMO world . . . not the Charlie's"

I agree that this could be a loss of revenue. But even 5% isn't going to be SO much so that it's worth kicking someone out of your city. Yes, they should pay the cost of having that bonus, but I think taxes should be a combination of all taxes, not just one or two.

lol, thats what I plan to do, as our city is doing a different specialization, however when it comes down to it, I for one think I might be nice enough to donate to the "said" city as I'm an overall honest person, then again I don't sell weapons, I craft for PA members only, so Doesn't really apply to me, really valid point

---

Sunakk wrote:
I agree that this could be a loss of revenue. But even 5% isn't going to be SO much so that it's worth kicking someone out of your city. Yes, they should pay the cost of having that bonus, but I think taxes should be a combination of all taxes, not just one or two.

---

It's not "worth" kicking them out of the city?? They're deadbeats!! They are milking the city for it's benefits without paying the corresponding costs? That "5% isn't so much" excuse is just not valid. Try using that excuse next time you go pay your taxes and see how that goes over.

Taxes can, should and are, a combination of all the kinds of taxes, but in an Industrial Society, specifically, the city will depend on it's high level crafters making high level equipment and selling them for high level prices to pay the city's tax bill.

Property Tax on a Large house at 15% is just 1344/wk. Sales tax on a suit of Composite sold at 100k, is 7k.

That's a big difference. Crafters who charge tens of thousands of credits for their wares and are smart enough to seek residency in an Industrial Society are smart enough to know that THEY HAVE TO PAY for that privledge.

We aren't operating a soup kitchen here.

Put up a large property tax and reimburse your 'paying' citizens until the deadbeat citizen sees the error of his ways (or leaves)

Remember, max property tax is 50% of maintenance on a small house that's a whopping 1512/wk at full tax.

IMO, no one will move for that. Hell, it costs more in redeeding fees!

So those deadbeat Fighters, Entertainers, Image designers, Smugglers, etc .... get to stay in your town too? Kick em all out. (Kidding aside) you taxes should be spread across all the residents.

Thodius

---

Thodious wrote:

So those deadbeat Fighters, Entertainers, Image designers, Smugglers, etc .... get to stay in your town too? Kick em all out. (Kidding aside) you taxes should be spread across all the residents.

Thodius

---

We are building this city as an Industrial Society. New citizens know this coming in.

Remember, the MAJOR benefits of an Industrial Society go to the crafters. That's why they make up a MAJOR part of the tax base.

An entertainer who lives in town and plays in the cantina is not "making use" of the city's specialization and since he'she doesn't have a vendor, they aren't subject to any sales tax. They end up being a citizen for thier own reasons and paying the taxes that they are "responsible" for, which is just property tax and citzen tax.

So, to answer your question....Yes! They get to stay in town because they aren't STEALING.

The hypothetical I've presented here deals with the CRAFTER that might want to move into a CRAFTING specialized city, take full advantage of the city's BENEFITS, and yet attempt to work it so they EVADE all tax for said benefit.

That to me is cheating the city and it's citizens. If I had any power whatsoever as a mayor, and the way this game is set-up, I don't, I would "take action" against the scofflaw.

Obviously you don't understand what kidding aside means.

Thodius

I understand what it means, just alot of the readers here might not. I felt it was a valid question that a mayor might have presented to him/her by one of those "non-crafting" professions so I just took it as an opportunity to pontificate..........and bump.

I haven't been able to find out if visitors get the specialization bonus, or if its just for residents --- but if anyone inside the town limits gets the bonus, then you will have a much bigger problem than with a few resident deadbeats. Without /cityban how are you going to handle the rogue crafter who comes into town with crafting droid, soaks up the city specialization bonus ... then heads to the next town?

Thodius

I wrote:

Without /cityban how are you going to handle the rogue crafter who comes into town with crafting droid

---------------------------------

er ... meant /citywarn

Thodius