Join the new world

Yeah, because no MU funding and struggling to cover MPP's is so much better

Right. Also, Serbians and other undesirables dumping products on our markets.

Yeah, because no MU funding and struggling to cover MPP's is so much better x2

We had 20% not long ago. Trust me when I say you will not notice a single change. People always (and I mean ALWAYS) get all worked up over taxes and get really emotional and all that crap when in the end it makes no difference except slightly raising our country income.

So don't worry. You'll hardly notice a thing.

lol

Yeah, because no MU funding and struggling to cover MPP's is so much better x3

Percentage rates are variable and don't mean a whole lot if we don't a specific target in mind
a) Set a number of MPPs we always want to maintain ~ this cost won't fluctuate
b) Set a max limit we want to fund our MUs based on the average number of active soldiers we have had over the last 4 months or so (this number is declining, so requires some forecasting)
c) Figure out what tax rate will match a + b values
d) Put an end to unfocused, unrelenting tax debates finally

I sux at math, btw

Or maybe we tried this formula in the past and it didn't work for some reason. MU funding needs some cutbacks to make it sustainable, yet I don't think we should skimp on bare-minimum MPPs (is 10 reasonable?)

Discussing why a % value should change without having fixed numbers attached to the debate, to me, seems like trying to decide which is the best colour in the rainbow. It's subjective.

We need what is called "an objective" to our finances, rather than a sentiment about MU funding

Not so old stuff :

http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/ecanada-is-a-fiscal-hell-nous-croulons-sous-les-taxes--2142309/1/20

Spock, we have had a month of the tax rate you proposed in that article.

Have we met the objectives of that target? It might be worth developing a set of numbers to support maintaining the rate you want to defend in Congress. Otherwise, it's more blue vs red politics on the tax debate.

What I know is that since the VAT was lowered to 10%, I have bought most of my stuff on the canadian market.

However, if the VAT increases to 20%, I'll consider to pay the required 40 CAD to move and to buy my stuff on the eUSA market.

Very simple. I'm rich, I can do that, with profit.

But the new players will be screwed, again, by the e-canadian communist clique, which loves to handle a lot of money for the good of others.

To those who wish to keep the VAT were it is you should come join the UPC. I'm the one who proposed the current reduction of Taxes and I have felt no negative affect from it. Prices are cheaper now. Vote for UPC to keep the taxs low

I want to go to congress / Je veux aller au congrès
http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/i-want-to-go-to-congress-je-veux-aller-au-congr-egrave-s-2159658/1/20

Check the tax rates of the top 10 countries.
Now check the tax rates of counties around where eCanada is ranked (we are ranked @ 33)
None of these nations have a VAT any where near where we do
our welfare MUs are sucking the wealth potential out of this nation.
Why would I save money as a new player and start to become independent and help to grow the tax base of the nation when I can belly up to troff.

Crock keeps making sense

Vote for UPC and move taxes back up to 20%

The UPC Military Platform supports a strong base for MU funding. At this point we have virtually 0 MU funding, so please Beorn, please follow party lines if you choose to be the PP.

[FR/EN] How to win the game / Quoi faire pour gagner?

http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-fr-en-how-to-win-the-game-quoi-faire-pour-gagner--2159763/1/20

UPC and CPF support 20% VAT and maintaining current MU funding (I am guessing on that last one).
I wonder where Clan Wolf and MDP stand on that. Perhaps the 5th Party will have a position, too, once the survey is tabulated.

Yeah, because no MU funding and struggling to cover MPP's is so much better x4

We have 6 very new MPPs and 3 fresh ones signed by tomorrow, and our treasury is at 87933.

That leaves us with almost 60k for other MPPs. Do we need 15 MPPs? Seems like too many to me.

The "struggling to cover MPPs" quote that people are repeating doesn't come across as true. However, the "no MU funding" part does ring true at 10% VAT.

Also, higher citizen population plays a huge role. More citizens = more daily spending which means the top 10 countries are able to get by with less VAT.

Crock has a point however about countries around us that have less of a VAT. Mind you, that gets a little difficult to compare also, some countries (Bosnia and Herzegovina - exact population of Canada) has only 3500 CC in treasury with 11 MPPS. I would hope we expect to do better than that.

Finland, which is 2 ranks below Canada has a 30% import tax on food, and 22 % VAT on weapons. Which we can certainly argue is worse than 20% / 20% VAT.
Therefore its really pointless to compare Canada to a top 10 country when we lack the buying power to get away with such low VAT. Our markets are already being buried with cheap imported products from top 10 countries. Higher VAT won't change that aspect.

Do the math.

How much revenue do you need to deliver the MU funding that you want? You will find that it is highly improbable to achieve the MU funding of the past.

The core question is, do you want to provide affordable goods to players (low VAT, low import taxes) or do you want to generate tax revenue for social programs (high VAT, low or high import taxes).

In both scenarios, import taxes can be low and you achieve your end.

Cheap stuff or a slush fund to manage?

Why not go back to 15% and see how revenue is? Also it's a little unfair to judge the 10% VAT results when we were primarily occupied by Poland which gave easy access to cheaper goods from Poland's market for a few weeks at least, until recently where prices on our market became competitive.

I'd also pump up the import tax 1%, just enough to help Canadian manufacturers compete a little better with those with high bonuses.

I also think MU funding is important for our damage output.

Also, like Spock said, I've been buying most of my rocket parts from Canadians with the VAT at 10% (I even skip over importers to buy from Canadians), but at 20% it is just too expensive for me to buy Canadian for the most part ($2 per tank more is $50 per rocket component - Q1-Q3 not a significant difference).

There has to be a balance where most of us buy Canadian while maximizing government revenue, and I personally don't believe it is 20%.

I know there was a spreadsheet floating around with the MoF that tracked daily income. We should probably do some small incremental increases in the VAT to see just how much more we may make off an increase of say...1%, 3%, 5%, etc. At some point the cost to benefit ratio would start to curb and we can see where the best % may lie.

I think we can all agree some 'tinkering' is in order to make the best decision.

Explain how the VAT effects the purchaser? It only effects the seller. The economic module is so broken it really does not matter one way or the other. We have always been a high vat low income tax jurisdiction. Don't just look at one tax when comparing us to others.

Since we're talking about taxes, I'm just going to throw this out there, since it has data on eCanada: http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/-statistics-the-misconception-of-the-resource-bonus--2159596/1/20

@Toad- I don't think your the spokesperson for the UPC. Though UPC might be open to a slight tax height a return to the VAT 20% goes against another of UPC's party belief point: I believe in modest taxes that does not : a. Make it hard on consumers or corporations to make a living.

Also a party platform is to Support MU Funding to the best of its abilities.
it does not say how well the MU's should be funded, and does not say we should have taxes at 20%.

You all need to watch the weapons market more often. Lower q weapons that are affordable for lower level players have been cheaper here than they have been in the US. The prices have only been different for the q6 and q7 weapons, and in most cases 1$ difference. When we lost Quebec it was different. Why because we lost our wrm bonus. Now that it has been back for a few says prices have gone down again. The wrm prices went down again too.

And just to continue, I have been advocating the income tracking based upon VAT now for close to 2 months yet as far as I know nothing has been done, yet we get articles like this saying baaaaad taxes OMG. And we get political parties claiming we need lower taxes yet have nothing to prove nor disprove why their number makes sense. Playing on the fears of RL where everyone hates taxes yet 99% of the population has no idea where it is spent.

Politicians get you shit together. I already see you spouting your taxation policy crap here yet you have no idea what will work. You have had several suggestions. Base it on required spending (+ say 10% to add a small padding) or base it upon taxation efficiency. Crunch the numbers. Get a congressioonal group or an economic group together and make the results open to all so that all parties can make judgements and promote a taxation level that is meaningful.

And finally, in response to those "rich players" who say they leave and go elsewhere to buy their weapons.. go ahead, but silly of you since q1-q5 weapons are cheaper here. You are onlty hurting yourselves because guess what? It is only the rich players who can afford q6/q7 weapons companies.

The rest of us middle/lower class folks (lol) will just have to struggle buying cheap q1-q4 weapons off of the market. Or better yet: Produce our own.

Fiscal policy.
Fisk fisk, fiska fisk fisk.
We'll do alright.

This seems like the definition of a sensationalist article.

@ Lord Beorn

I don't use the economics much in this game as it's broken already and I'm self funded. But I think that even though it seems like a large change in taxes it does not make it hard on people to make a living, the prices don't change much but the seller earns slightly less.

I'm all for raising taxes for MU funding and MPPs as in this game Military gains far outweigh some measly economic losses on the citizen level. I saw your VP "agree" with raising taxes too.

@chewytaz

i'm not opposed to raising them either, just not back to 20%

Grinch, eCanada is disorganized, in general, and there is no real political class that assumes full responsibility of coordinating think-tank groups and carrying out long-term research. Parties have little focus or long-term vision unless it is specifically driven by a very active individual who has a clear agenda/vision.

Feel free to volunteer as a coordinator for such a VAT research group or MU funding think-tank. Congress/politicians/politicians don't do such stuff anymore.

For the most part the seller wont increase their price during a tax hike.
1- being they don't know about the hike and loss in profit
2- Can't sell weapons if everyone underbids you.

I rather have MU's become more self sufficient in the case that no Congress is present. Like the UK that had no congress for 3 months.

Jack up the tax to 15-17-20 build up the treasury and help MU's like the CAF who have trouble starting their slave pits get off the ground.

@Beorn:

"Also a party platform is to Support MU Funding to the best of its abilities."

That means we go full out with 20%. More funding, more supplies.

@Toad.

"to the best of its abilities", if you wanted to go all the way with that clause we could raise it to 100%.

Dammit, am I going to have to Laffer curve this shit and run a best fit? Has anyone actually looked at the Google Doc EPD posted?

On second thought, I'm not sure there's enough data. Bluh.