Politician Archive

Message Edited by Philomorph on 02-20-2004 11:06 AM

not realy, every sever hic-up and heartattack resets the shuttle fee to a flat 100.

We'll need to add another spot on our city council. "Shuttle fee accessor"

Job Duty: Seeking a afk macro artist to build and run a script to log in and keep the shuttle fees at 300.

Well do you have any Merchants in the city? My city makes plenty on a 10% sales tax. The vendors that carry big items like Comp Armor bring in several thousand dollars a week. I placed 4 Merchant tents in front of the Shuttleport and they get buisness all day long. Something to think about.

Mayor Bourget Vision City, Naboo- Tarquinas

Actually we have a very large crafter/merchant population and they are very opposed to sales taxes. I guess we could resort to that, but we feel it's unfair for a merchant to have to pay more taxes than a non-merchant, which is what a sales tax amounts to in the end. Some states here in the US get by fine with no sales tax and we should be able to also. Why in the world is there even a cap on the tax? And if we must have one (to prevent mayoral griefing I suppose) why is it so low?? 2000cr per week? That's like 2 low-end missions. If a citizen can't afford that, they shouldn't have a house.

We could raise property taxes to 50%, but again, that unfairly penalizes people with multiple houses (the merchants mostly of course). We are firm believers in a nice flat tax that has everyone paying the same amount of taxes since everyone gets the same services and benefits of citizenship.

Could we possibly get an explanation from the devsfor this cap that is obviously way too low?

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Philomorph wrote:

Actually we have a very large crafter/merchant population and they are very opposed to sales taxes.

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I'm a crafter myself, but I've never understood the opposition to sales tax by crafters thing. Do customers actually seek out no sales tax vendors? Is pricing really that competitive? Would a 500 credit tax on a 10,000 credit sale change a customer's mind?

Crafters don't pay sales tax, customers do.Sales tax is the only tax which is citizen independent, and the only way (besides shuttle tax) to get non citizens to help fund your city.

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Bashful wrote:

Is pricing really that competitive? Would a 500 credit tax on a 10,000 credit sale change a customer's mind?

Crafters don't pay sales tax, customers do.Sales tax is the only tax which is citizen independent, and the only way (besides shuttle tax) to get non citizens to help fund your city

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I guess it depends on the type of item. I know people shop around a lot for big-ticket items, unless they've found a specific person they are loyal to. At least they did a few months ago when I was an active architect. I'm the same way with armor and meds. I'm not sure how much a 5% sales tax would raise. It would probably be significant, but here's the thing. If much of your city's business is internal, then a sales tax on vendors just ends up being a transaction fee, which is an inefficiency that creates a drag on commerce.

If you sell resources on vendors, they get taxed. Then the person who bought them sells the final product and that gets taxed too. If components are being bought in the process, that gets taxed too. You end up with double or even triple taxation on goods because there's no "wholesale" market function.

Regardless, I know there are other ways to raise the needed maintenance fees. I'm just complaining because my city of 87 citizens have chosen the way they want to pay for it, and we aren't allowed to. What the heck is the purpose of that?

Message Edited by Thornstar on 02-21-2004 01:07 AM