[Congress] On Tax Cuts

Day 1,848, 16:51 • Published in United Kingdom France • by Madacaion

Let me start by saying that I am all for tax cuts.

I am all for tax cuts that are implemented with thought about the consequences. That are made with the eUK’s best interest at heart. Something which I don’t think is happening and hopefully this article will outline the reasons why.



1. Cutting programs, without replacement, to fund cuts is not in the best interest of the eUK

So the CP has announced his spending cuts for this term:

“1) We are making cuts to MPP stack
2) We are making savings in CTA
3) We are looking good for MM fishing
4) We are going to rent out spare ORGs to those who want to try and make more gold in MM.”
~ BigAnt

Now this first point relates to the second cut – making savings in CTA, which actually means cutting CTA.

Call to arms is a system by which players are given tanks for voting (and hopefully reading) the MoD orders. This is set to 4 Q7 tanks which is helpful to players of all ages. How far these cuts will go is apparently undecided with figures from 3 Q7 through to 1Q7 being banded about.

The point is – tanks given out to players who are actively involved in the community is a GOOD thing. Any reduction in CTA should be hotly contested by EVERYONE. Yes – that includes you!

Call to arms rewards the active members of our community. It encourages them to log in every day (or at least every other day) and collect their tanks, read the article and then to fight. A lot of people (myself and carlini included) found that CTA was a great thing for getting us hooked on the game. That incentive helped to bring us closer into the community and through that we became active in other areas of the eUK.

This isn’t just about retention of new players – it can also help two clickers (who are a good amount of people in the eUK) find a reason to log on and hopefully then catch a glimpse of an article, shout or message that pips their interest. How amazing would it be to have the majority of our (slightly more active than normal) two clickers come to life and actively engage with the community instead of just hording/selling the tanks? How much more powerful would we be militarily?

Call to arms is not just a retention tool for new players (which should be shouted about more to them – tell them with the NHS signups!) but it is also a unique opportunity to retain players of all ages and of all activity levels – and potentially entice some people back into the welcoming embrace that is the eUK community.

Section TL😃R
- Call to Arms is being cut – this is bad.
- Call to Arms rewards our active community, anything which can help to retain these people is excellent.
- Call to Arms gives a unique opportunity to entice two clickers back into “active service”



2. The Money Marketplace (MM)

“We are looking good for MM fishing/ We are going to rent out spare ORGs to those who want to try and make more gold in MM.”
~BigAnt

These statements we’re made by our CP in the same message. I have a couple problems with these – the first of which can be seen in my previous article: http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-congress-statement-on-taxes-2171928/1/20

“The proper financial stewardship of the eUK is something that I will tirelessly campaign for - as I’m sure most of my learned colleagues in the house would join me in such an endeavour – and anything that strays towards option 3 [taking a risk on the MM managing to plug any gaps in our finances] without Carlini [MoF] explicitly promising such (i.e. its 90%+ certain) would not be proper stewardship imho.”
~Me!

And the second is this:
If you’re so confident of fantastic returns on the MM – why are we renting out the orgs used to facilitate this?

Section TL😃R
- The MM is not your magic bullet
- The MM income cannot be relied upon (we had zero income for 75% of the term last term)
- The CP is confident of making lots of money on the MM but also wants to rent out the orgs used for that money creation – LOGIC!



3. Cutting VAT does not automatically mean players will get more money.

Advocates of the VAT cut fail to realise that the markets have crashed – like totally and completely crashed without any hope of revival without divine (i.e. admin) intervention.
So cutting VAT will mean more money for the average player because profit margins will be higher passing on a wage increase to non-company owning players? Nope. Well at the very least the players who DO own companies will be a bit richer? Nope.

Why?

Because in the eRep economy – it is always a race to the bottom.

Lower taxes won’t give the player any more money – it will simply reduce the price that the weapon is sold at. (Which even for q7’s is pretty close to cost price). Profit margins won’t increase (well they will initially for around 5 minutes before they equalise! HURRAY!). Prices will fall in line with those economies around us (such as Poland) who already have a low (for my example) 2% VAT tax. So in order to get a (at time of print 16.3-15.6 = 0.7cc) 4% reduction in price of Q7’s you’ll be sacrificing ~90% of our government income – Is that what is in the best interests of the eUK?

You’re selling out the majority of our tax income so you can buy another Q7 tank every ~25 days?

[Note: Current proposition in government is only to 7% - even smaller reduction in price for a good chunk of our income? No thanks!]

There are, however, 1 group of people who could potentially benefit from this, the two clickers. Funny thing is – by being two clickers they are also the group least likely to use the market (or if they do – they use their wages for a single Q7 – excellent).

By reducing CTA you’re potentially helping out the two clickers (the vast majority of whom don’t use the market) and penalising the active members of the community.

People who will never return to active life because they are £2.00 richer a day.

Section TL😃R
- Cutting VAT doesn’t give company owners more money
- Cutting VAT doesn’t give workers more money
- Cutting VAT doesn’t give 2 clickers more money
- Cutting VAT could POTENTIALLY give two clickers more money
- 4% reduction in price of Q7’s = sacrificing ~90% our our government income.
- You’d be selling out the majority of our tax income so you can buy another Q7 tank every ~25 days.



So why am I writing this article?

Because you can change this! – Congress votes, but ultimately we represent your views. So tell us what your views are. Read the articles posted about it, query people, ask Carlini - he loves PM's, think about this issue and in the end use your judgement to identify the opinions and facts you feel you can base your opinion on.

Get a hold of your PP, your congress members (you can view a list of them, by party here: http://www.erepublik.com/en/main/congress-elections), your CP and message them your view. Tell them all that you do not want ideological cuts simply because we can, simply because someone said so in a manifesto, simply because people feel like they have to change something for the sake of it.

You have a voice – use it! People will listen. And no self respecting congress member, party or country president will vote for this proposal when you use your voice and ask them to look at the facts.

You know it's bad when a member of the UKRP (who's party policy is low taxes) is campaigning against tax reductions.

Thank you for your time.

~ Madacaion



Overall TL😃R
- Call to Arms is being cut – this is bad.
- Call to Arms rewards our active community, anything which can help to retain these people is excellent.
- Call to Arms gives a unique opportunity to entice two clickers back into “active service”
- The MM is not your magic bullet
- The MM income cannot be relied upon (we had zero income for 75% of the term last term)
- The CP is confident of making lots of money on the MM but also wants to rent out the orgs used for that money creation – LOGIC!
- Cutting VAT doesn’t give company owners more money
- Cutting VAT doesn’t give workers more money
- Cutting VAT doesn’t give 2 clickers more money
- Cutting VAT could POTENTIALLY give two clickers more money
- 4% reduction in price of Q7’s = sacrificing ~90% our our government income.
- You’d be selling out the majority of our tax income so you can buy another Q7 tank every ~25 days.
- YOU have a voice – so tell your elected representative what you think.



Please consider shouting this article!

http://tinyurl.com/Congress-Tax-Cuts

Thanks!


Lastly - pre-emptive comments about being butt-hurt.

1) YAWN - You can't just assume everything done in opposition is butt-hurt, please proceed to step 2)

2) I've shown you my reasoning, figures and statements for why tax shouldn't be decreased. Now before anyone starts namecalling or guessing motives, why don't you show me yours?