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August 16, 2011/Day 1,365 of the New World

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Today’s Issue Includes:
I. Taxes and Public Opinion!
II. CONGRESS MOVES TO INCREASE INCOME TAXES
III. Proposals
IV. Congressional Budget Office Requests


I. Taxes and Public Opinion


For the past three days, I’ve asked Americans to take a survey regarding taxes. I’m pleased not only in the number of responses, but also the quality of the responses. While the survey didn’t require write-in responses or additional comments, many who took the survey did provide some comments. Responders had the opportunity to remain anonymous, but many signed their responses in hopes of being featured in the Congressional Record. While some general consensuses were made in certain areas, vastly different opinions were formulated in others. So, if you are ready for some nice graphs, strong opinions, and the first of hopefully many more Public Opinion to come, then sit back and enjoy.

Import Taxes
The current Import Tax rate for Food is 99%.


According to the results, most Americans, 52% believed Food Import Taxes help government revenue up while only 15% believed Food Import Taxes prevented them from buying cheaper food. 19% thought the rates might help, but admitted to not buying Food often. 15% voiced their own opinion. Other opinions include😛

“Well no one is gonna import for 99% tax rate so reveunue is probably 0,” said a mysterious responder named conservative.

Congressman Gnilraps responded, “It was a great idea until Admin stopped paying taxes through the bot. Now it needs to be changed to a competitive rate.”

Congressman Flying Trotsky added, “Yes, it ensures Americans buy from fellow Americans” In a smiliar school of thought, one anonymous responder stated, “Keep foreign food out”


Weapon Imports had similar results.

The current tax rate is 30%, significantly lower than Import Taxes on Food. 48% believed Weapons Import Taxes helped government revenue while 19% believed the rates prevented them from buying cheaper Weapons. 19% of responders thought the rate may help government revenue, but admitted to not buying Weapons often. 15% voiced their own opinion.

conservative said, “same as food [no one is importing, no revenue is generated.”
Congressman Gnilraps offered a more complex response: “A too-high import tax diminishes competition, thereby slightly raising overall prices. However, the highest priority should be placed on food imports. We need cheap food.”

Flying Trotsky and an anonymous American both believed the rate support American businesses in hopes of keeping foreign products out.

Responders of the survey were asked “If you could dictate the Import Tax rates, how would you change them?” The question was optional, but 44% of responders did offer some advice. Here is a sample of what Americans had to say.

“Eliminate them for weapons. In theory do the same with food, but I understand it being high with us having all food bonus regions,” John Largo

“Import taxes should be reasonable to bring in trade and protect eUSA businesses,” Lord Krauser

“keep them on par with other countries. 10%-20% seems reasonable enough to have some imports in the event of a shortage, but give domestic producers an advantage selling their goods,” Dell Fargus

“Make food import tax cheap. Encourage competition and low prices,” Gnilraps

“I don't really know too much about the mechanics of it. I trust the people we elect to figure this stuff out,” anonymous

“lower it to 10%” conservative

While many responders do think Import Taxes are important for government revenue, their comments revealed they want them to be LOWERED. Americans want cheaper Food and Weapons. Lower rates may help lower prices and encourage imports, which in turn contribute to revenue. Rates that are too high discourage imports, when then result in little or no revenue.

Value Added Tax

The Value Added Tax (VAT) had similar responses compared with Import Taxes.



For Food VAT, 48% agreed with the current rate (10😵 while 19% believed the VAT prevented them from buying cheap Food. 22% of responders don’t buy Food often and therefore don’t pay the VAT often. Only three responders offered a different response.

“It's a little too much,” according to Sozo.

Weapons VAT had a slightly different response.


While the majority, 56%, still supported the rate (which is currently 7😵, a higher percentage of responders, 26% did think the rate prevented them from getting cheaper weapons. Most responders seem to buy weapons as only 11% said they didn’t buy weapons often.

Many responders answered this question: “If you could dictate the VAT rates, how would you change them?”

“This is where you're going to make your money. Keep it 10% or less,” Dell Fargus

“I think the tax on weapons should be 5% for the VAT, that way the fighters can buy weapons at a cheaper rate and now depend on government as much,” anonymous.

“Perhaps lower the food tax to 8%, and raise the weapons tax to 8%?” Sozo

“VAT should be slightly less than Import tax when we have all bonuses. When we are missing a bonus, import taxes should be les than 10%, and VAT should be low 0-5%.” John Largo

One lengthy response from Gnilraps may give insight on our tax policy as a whole, “Our tax system should be designed to attract business. I would love to see increased revenue through increased volume.

Because all of eRep are basically working with the same Gold standard and thereby the same starting point in terms of currency standard, our Tax Code ought to be geared toward stealing business from foreign countries UNTIL they change their tax codes to undercut us. Then our tax code should increase to take advantage of the two-clicker population who is too lazy or ignorant to think of purchasing overseas. Then again after the cycle plays out, our tax code should once again change to undercut overseas markets and repeat, repeat.”

Judging from the opinions and responses, the public seems to want VAT to be SLIGHTLY LESS. 10% seems to be the highest VAT before making some buyers unhappy while something lower may make Americans feel like they can buy more, which in the end means fighting more. Congress may want to debate lowering the VAT.

Income Tax

The Income Tax has generally been the most controversial of taxes. On the one hand, a higher Income Tax rate generally is geared towards taxing the “two-clicker” population who will sacrifice their income in order to fund more active players through government programs. But something too high may encourage citizens to leave the US, which results in a loss of production and revenue. On the other hand, a lower Income Tax rate may keep workers of all kinds happy.

Americans were asked, “How would you feel if Income Taxes were RAISED?” There was no general consensus, but here are the results.



26% thought the tax raise would be good and help the government
19% said they would be angry
37% were neutral. We can assume these responders are part of a commune.
19% gave their own response, of which some said they were part of a commune and wouldn’t be affect significantly.

Other responses include😛

“i would be okay with it, but only temporarily” kooguy

“Meh. Not sure COngress is spending its funds as efficiently as it could on the USAF, but whatever,” anonymous

As a follow up question, I asked what should the Income Tax rate be?



41% thought Congress should keep the current tax rate or LOWER it to 5%
41% thought Congress should RAISE the tax rate to 15% (5% above current standards)
11% thought an even higher RAISE should take effect (tax rate of 20-25😵

Of course, there were a few opinions:

“Whatever pays the bills,” Gnilraps

Public Disclosure

If you’ve been keeping up with the Congressional Record, you will have noticed a lot of “[CLASSIFIED]” material. Most of that has been about taxes. So I asked Americans whether or not Congress should talk publically about taxes.

37% thought all tax discussions should be PUBLIC
37% trusted Congress to talk about taxes PRIVATELY so long as there was a reason to do so
11% had a neutral opinion
15% had their own opinion

“Even as a Congressman, I'm angry that the public isn't given a chance to observe proceedings [sic] that so deeply affect them,” Flying Trostsky

“I am an ex-congressman, and I do not understand why tax discussions are in private (budget should be private, they are different),” John Largo

“I understand there may be security issues. but there should be some sort of notification process, to allow citizens to make suggestions,” Brolin Carter

Adding these opinions makes the public lean towards a more OPEN Congress when it comes to tax changes. Of course, Congress can never keep tax changes secret. Anyone interested only need to check out the Country Administration section in-game. Maybe Congress is shy about who is proposing said tax changes.

Final Thoughts

I allowed responders to give any final thoughts regarding taxes. The variety speaks for itself.

“While a set $/day is a good goal, congress should also consider the goal of low cost weapons and food. A militia needs less money when tanks are cheaper. Perhaps congress should consider a "tank" demoninated [sic] budget rather then $. Instead of $100k/day, maybe it should be 2750 Q5 tanks per day. As tanks get cheaper, government requirements are lessened,” John Largo

“Taxes don't affect me, since I'm in a military commune, however, I believe that taxes should be slightly raised to increase revenue, but not raised so much that players find it hard to make money and spend it on food and weapons. To me, increasing the income tax rate by 5 to 10% seems fair,” sjohnfsdsxzzx

“I have served several terms in Congress and have never agreed with keeping things like this from taxpayers,” anonymous

“Taxes and revenue is a hard thing to judge "is this to much? is this to low?" but that's what is the job of congress to study the facts and make the judgement. In my time in congress i supported "fair trade" over "free trade" and these days just like back then i think we should move to more of that.

“The plan i like and talked about was a VAT of 10%, income of 10% and lower but solid import taxes of 3 to 5% to take real effect of our trade power,” Lord Krauser
“It should be noted that a lot of newbs are going to have trouble answering these questions simply because the don't know how the tax system is in eRep. I would suggest that Congress consider something to educate newbs on taxes. It should also be noted that the income tax rate doesn't really affect most commune players. Personally I make $1 a day at my job. Take what you want of it and it still won't faze me as it's such a low amount,” Fluffydoorman

“I think that the EC [Economic Council] is far too close-vested with their numbers and work. I'd like to see transparency between EC and Congress. I don't really care about transparency on this issue between congress and the Citizenry. Any Citizen who has a worthwhile opinion on Tax Code is probably either already in congress or likely will be.

Lastly, I cannot drive home my point enough that our tax code MUST take full advantage of the two-clicker population. They are the ones who will buy from the eUS Market at whatever price is cheapest. HOWEVER, we live in an essentially FIXED-INCOME environment (from the two-clicker standpoint), so there is a point of diminishing returns here. (There is no such thing as working overtime, no such thing as producing better than your neighbor, and no such thing as forward advancement.),” Gnilraps.

“Like I said previously, a lot of us do work hard for our money. That is true. But that lies in question, do you work hard for your country or yourself?

The taxes should be raised in order for us to compete with other countries like Poland and Serbia. If the country revenue gets to low because citizens want the taxes lowered. How much would that damage the country? We need to fulfill the goals congress has set for weekly revenue, and if raising the taxes is our best option then it must be done,” youngHOOD

“I think this Congress has done more classification than any other before it. I think if you are going to discuss taxes then you discuss them in a public location where the people can weigh in and tell what they think. It's time for Congress to start answering to the American people, and not to themselves,” anonymous

“LOWER TAXES!!!” conservative

As for my own final thoughts, let’s see about lowering Import Taxes to encourage a greater sell in goods, keep VAT around 10% (maybe 8-9😵, and keep Income Tax at 10%. Congress should also discuss taxes publically, or at the very least have their Proposals (where sensitive information is less likely to be revealed) public. I’d like to thank everyone who participated in the poll. I tried to get as many opinions posted without being too overwhelming. If anything, it shows that there is a variety of opinions out there regarding taxes and more importantly people want to express their opinion. Now for some related news…

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II. CONGRESS MOVES TO INCREASE INCOME TAXES


After much debate, Congress has decided to vote on INCREASING Income Taxes. Rates will change from 10% to 15% for all industries.

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III. Today’s Proposals


1. Tax Change: Food. Income tax from 10% to 15%. Proposed by Eli Crownover.
2.New Citizen Message.
3. Mutual Protection Pact with the Philippines.
4. Donate 95,999 USD to the Congressional Budget Office. Proposed by Mikehen.

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IV. Congressional Budget Office Requests




Thank you for your time.
Heero Blaze,
Deputy Speaker of the House
Congressman of Michigan