[CP] Government Tax Expenditure

Day 2,093, 14:25 • Published in Ireland Ireland • by Sweet Drinker



Taxes seem to the big topic this term. I'm due a decent article out now so it might as well be on this topic!

With the change to Erepublik's taxation module there's been a lot of questions thrown around about;
"Why is the government so secretive about tax revenue?"
"What is the government spending my taxes on?"

Well firstly, there is no secrecy regarding taxes.
Anybody can scrutinize our taxes at will:




As you can see, not only is it possible to monitor any removals of treasury money, but the government obviously isn't looking for much of it!

There are other government activities which can cause money to be deducted from our treasury:
*Buy Buildings (hasn't been done in years)
*Declare War (costs a fortune in gold pointlessly, we've never done this)
*Airstrike (Ireland hasn't done this...yet)
*Mutual Protection Pact (your taxes go here)
But all of them are permanently documented in the country-administration logs, and the money from can only ever go to the admins.
The incontrovertible fact is that your taxes are spent entirely on MPP's.

So while this answers some questions, it obviously raises another:
"How does the government pay for anything if it doesn't draw on our taxes?"

The Irish government relies on two sources to finance it's programs:
Philanthropy
The Bank

Philanthropy can be donations of weapons, food, and cash. Or volunteering the use of private assets like factories to house our military. Even peoples' time is a donation of sorts.
The National Irish Army is mainly financed by asset volunteering. The Ministry of Community is mainly financed by donations.


The Bank is a dynamic National Trust Fund managed by a team of economic enthusiasts. It operates on donations, loans, investments, the reminents left after the great heist, and it's own accrued wealth.
It's purpose is to generate assets for the benefit and protection of our nation.
It does so by investing in various programs from passive GoldFish to aggressive commodity investment and anything in between.

Due to the strategic nature of it's stockpiles, capital, and activity, detail of what the Bank is up to aren't disclosed.
But The Bank team are committed to improving the nation's financial well being.
And you can rest assured they're not doing it with your tax money!

So with everything so simple you may wonder:
"What's all this stuff about secret revenue activity I see i the media ad nauseum?"

That all goes back to well over a year ago.
Erepublik's economic module has mutated many times. To financial enthusiasts the Erepublik we play now is an entirely different game to the one we played in the past.
At that time it was possible to 'prime' a national economy by plugging The Bank's assets into it, making recirculating revenue streams possible that accumulated capital.
It was also possible to target other nations' economies for highly predatory gold extraction.
-These various practices earned eIreland serious advantages over our rivals in the field of military funding.
-They could also earn us some unkindly thoughts from nations whose economies had been raided by us.
So any financial data of that time deemed a risk to our strategic advantage, or international standing, was never disclosed.
And with a finacial system that wired the The Bank and Treasury into a circuit, basically any information on State Finances at the time was a security risk.

While there are no financial reports to read from that time, the effectiveness of the Government's program funding tells a lot.
The National Weapons Program alone was a seven figure operation.
The combined State Expenditure for the August 2012 Term broke a million IEP. (the one where Poland wiped us)
The GoldFish and Dividends programs from that time account for well over a million IEP also.

So the next time you wonder "what those goons in government are doing with my tax money?".
You can check the country-administration page and say to yourself "Nothing! Just signing some MPP's."

Sw33t