Wealth Tax and Starting Cash

[Anolytic]

So this idea is mainly a thought experiment. But there is a real underlying issue.

That of players starting with 0 reals, and that of players going broke.

 

My first impulse about this is this: Wouldn’t the admiralty of any navy ensure that newly commissioned captains (i.e fresh players/characters) would have at least some starting capital (through loans or a starting salary) to hire crew and provisions?

 

So my idea is that instead of all new characters created (also existing characters after a wipe/release) starting with 0 reals, they would all start with, say, 10 000 reals.

That is not a lot of money, but it is something to buy guns, repairs and hire crew, maybe even buy a sloop other than the basic cutter.

 

Expanding on this, there could be simple insurance against going completely broke (I know about cargo delivery missions, but even they require that you have access to a ship with cargo capacity).

Every server maintenance, captains with less than 10k reals in their money chest would be credited with up to 10 000 reals.

 

These sums are small and far from economy breaking, yet enough for a startup captain or someone who mistakenly burned through all their cash on a failed venture.

 

However, for the purposes of slightly curbing economic inflation, and also preventing speculation in emptying out the money chest of someone’s alts in order to «earn» 10k reals per account per day, I would suggest that conversely a «wealth tax» was applied. This would, for all accounts that upon server maintenance possessed more than 2,5 million reals in their money chest, they would be taxed 50 000 reals.

 

This is not a lot for an active trader, but would slightly limit hoarding of reals.

 

Add a rule that after 10 days of inactivity (not logging in), the wealth tax stops applying, to avoid players going on vacation for 1 month finding their fortune halved upon their return.

[Sella]

😮 Taxes! A Greek's worst nightmare! 

Joke aside, as unpopular as it might be in real life and will be in-game, I think it is a good proposal and I would go as far as tying it to something nation-related. I haven't figured out what as of yet though. Yes to more real life economics!

[Sailor]

All accounts were given money on start some time ago before release.
Players traded money and deleted accounts, one guy generated 2 mln, 50k tax is nothing.

[Angus MacDuff]

1 minute ago, Sailor said:

All accounts were given money on start some time ago before release.
Players traded money and deleted accounts, one guy generated 2 mln
 

Lol, there is always an exploit!  A passenger mission can be done in a cutter and there is your starting capitol.  For me, I would do the tutorial.  If I were to start in a cutter, I would cap a TBrig and there is my starting capitol and xp towards 2nd rank.  At this moment (barring any changes) it is very easy to make starting money.

[Teutonic]

You already get taxed at ports.

Lets not add another tax.

[Archaos]

With the current passenger delivery missions there is no need for people to be given extra Reals. They can jump into a basic cutter and easily earn 40~50k Reals in a few minutes just delivering passengers to a port close by.

[Snoopy]

Assuming the delivery missions are going to get nerfed;

For new players as the target audience, I think it's much better to have payouts linked to the tutorial missions. Just have each mission pay 10k (or so), this will set you up nicely. Two birds, one stone. A lot less prone to abuse by Altaholics unless they enjoy doing the tutorials over and over.

 

[Socialism]

Sounds a lot like..... gasp Socialism

[Ligatorswe]

Well... It is quite easy to make money these days. So i dont really support this idea Anolytic. There are shortrange missions that you can take that gives you 20.000-30.000 easily. And the system you propose is a bit too complicated for my taste.

But to make it easy for new players we should always make sure that they can get short range missions in the capitals, that can give them 10.000-20.000.

[Sir Texas Sir]

The only other tax I would like to see in game is Clan Tax.  Where you can set that all in clan give up a part of there rewards to clan.  

[Socialism]

2 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

The only other tax I would like to see in game is Clan Tax.  Where you can set that all in clan give up a part of there rewards to clan.  

+ this

Clans should really get a portion of the doubloons that are charged for swapping outposts as well as cut of the money used to repair.  

[Sir Texas Sir]

4 minutes ago, Socialism said:

+ this

Clans should really get a portion of the doubloons that are charged for swapping outposts as well as cut of the money used to repair.  

Any doubloons spent in port just like Reals should be taxed in a means.  Maybe not out right, but part of that should go back to owner of clan.

[Angus MacDuff]

1 minute ago, rediii said:

doubt its too hard to let a bot create a character, trade money, delete the char again and start from the beginning 24/7

how many times is this possible each hour?

It would take far longer to do that than it would to go out and cap a TBrig (AI).  Passenger runs and cargo missions are faster also.  They are perfectly designed to fight this sort of Alt exploit.

[van der Clam]

3 hours ago, Sir Texas Sir said:

The only other tax I would like to see in game is Clan Tax.  Where you can set that all in clan give up a part of there rewards to clan.  

Would be nice if these "clan taxes" went toward resources automatically, and was selected by the clan leaders, and filled by Admiralty automatically. Say my clan needs Live Oak. I set my clan tax to 10%. (After thought, not a percent but a weekly amount.) This is automatically collected weekly from my members and is automatically sent to Admiralty to buy the resource I've selected; in this case LO. This way we could collect help from members who are afk for awhile due to vacation or looming wipes, etc, and from the sneaky alts that try to loot our warehouses.

However, our clan...and most Dutch clans already have members who keep the warehouses loaded as needed. No tax would be needed for us.

 

[Tiedemann]

10 hours ago, rediii said:

doubt its too hard to let a bot create a character, trade money, delete the char again and start from the beginning 24/7

how many times is this possible each hour?

if it is triggered by maintenance, who cares? 

[Palatinose]

12 hours ago, Graf Bernadotte said:

50k per day would be 18,25 Million per year or a property tax rate of 730%. 😬 Not to forget that we have to pay for each purchase and each sale 10% value added tax, which is already the equivalent of more than 50% of our profit.

Will Cayman Island turn into a tax haven then? Or is there any game which plays in Switzerland?

May I offer my service as in game tax consultant? Charging only 10k a day or 250k a month. 

First advice is for free: simply put money into the clan warehouse to hide it from the authorities. If someone comes up with the idea to tax wealthy clans I request to form a entity model called foundation with legal capacity which donates 5k daily to nationals with socially disadvantaged background, therefore not being taxable at all.

Jokes aside, when it comes to taxes it gets complicated to balance things, therefore I can't support @Anolytics ideally nice idea.

[Tiedemann]

I see the need for this for a casual player. losing your traders with all your gold invested or a warship, and beeing left with 0 reals is a real pain.

But what if all the clan players at the end of each day send all their reals to the clan inventory. And the day after they get 10-50K because they where broke..That would actually be abused after a wipe, so the tax collector needs to check the clans current reals holding also. And then the alts clan warehouse etc. So It is never ending..

Better to make a special tutorial for bankrupt captains, where they enter sink/capture a ship and get 10-50K reals to continue their journey. And limit this to once per day in connection with steam account. 

[Angus MacDuff]

1 minute ago, Tiedemann said:

I see the need for this for a casual player. losing your traders with all your gold invested or a warship, and beeing left with 0 reals is a real pain.

But what if all the clan players at the end of each day send all their reals to the clan inventory. And the day after they get 10-50K because they where broke..That would actually be abused after a wipe, so the tax collector needs to check the clans current reals holding also. And then the alts clan warehouse etc. So It is never ending..

Better to make a special tutorial for bankrupt captains, where they enter sink/capture a ship and get 10-50K reals to continue their journey. And limit this to once per day in connection with steam account. 

No need for anything like this.  Devs have put in place an easy system to get some start-up reals.  Simply jump in your free cutter and do a couple of passenger missions.  No investment needed and easy money.  Yes you have to take the time to do it, but that's your punishment for going broke.  Be more prudent next time...