[NMA][CONGRESS] Import Taxes

Day 3,327, 07:56 • Published in United Kingdom United Kingdom • by Grampa Alfagrem

Not much has been going on since my surprise election to congress a few days ago. There have been no messages, no articles to consider or pretty much any signs of life.

The one thing that we, your representatives did for you was change the import tax levels on food from 20% to 10%

As I said, there was no debate, linked article or any kind of prior indication that this was in the offing or indeed what the intention of doing this was.

On a meta level it makes the eUK a slightly friendlier place for forigs to sell their wares and makes us look like we’re making wise and considered decisions to make sure the eUK market isn’t going to run out of food.

In reality it just means that overseas producers make a tiny but more profit on any goods they sell on the eUK market.



There are only 3 ‘real’ approaches to import levels within erepublik but before you decide on a position that you, your party or nation adopts you need to understand market behaviour.


As the proposal dealt with the food market let us look at that particular sector and some important rules or considerations;

For every action in the game you lose 10 wellness/health points.
Many players are lazy or afflicted with OCD which means that when they exhaust these wellness points they want them recovered without having to faff around. This means they will either buy Q5 food (1 unit = 1 action) or Q1 food (5 units = 1 action).

Q2, Q3, Q4 and Q6 will ofc sell if priced such that the £ Vs wellness cost is such that it is noticeably better than other worldwide benchmarks but owners will probably tell you that volume of sales for these items is fairly low.

Q7 does share the lucky feature of being a nice round number but the resource scaling to supply those factories make them less profitable then Q1 or Q5.


Food isn’t that profitable
In a war game where weapons are consumed with relish and wellness can be recovered via admin awards, admin given factories or giveaway schemes like the NHS, Food doesn’t shift at the rate of other sectors.

In general this means that food production is normally backed up by managers producing their own RM’s and finished products.


A price band does exist
There exists 3 prices of which food producers should be aware.

1) The breakeven price – The per unit price of food needed to cover work tax, health recovery and accounting for VAT.

2) The worldwide low – The price per unit that defines their product as the cheapest in the world and thus very attractive to buyers from all over the world (either for use, stocking or re-sale).

3) The re-sale price – The worlds lowest price + the nations VAT value. Knowing this stops other UK citizens from buying the worldwide low items abroad, selling them on the UK market and undercutting your price.

For Q1 food these levels at current (UK wiped) levels are – £0.08, £0.34 & £0.36

For Q5 food these levels at current (UK wiped) levels are – £0.05, £1.73 & £1.82


So, in terms of import taxation – what does this all mean and what are our options as a nation?



If you believe the nation can produce enough food for its population from current producers, schemes and the free factory we all have then this might appeal to you.

The UK factory owners get a captive market to work in and can offer their goods at the 3rd price band.

The citizens get a stable level and availability of food.

The government gets to know that all currency transactions remain within the nation and indeed can perhaps make some money of their own by being the price capper i.e buying food abroad and offering food at a capped level – The profit coming from the fact that they are in effect not losing the VAT money.


This option simply uses the import tax levels to add a value to a foreigners production value equal to the value that the UK lacks in native resources.
Or if you prefer – negates the advantage a foreign firm may have by being in a 100% resource nation.

In our current wiped state and using the production figures from the most efficient 100% nation this level is currently 73% (would be 38% if we had all our regions).


In this option you are trying to produce a UK market where the price of food is nearer or better than the 2nd price range. (No producer is going to sell at the 1st price range)

To do this we’d simply have to adjust our import level to 1% AND our VAT level to 1%

Our target is the Q5 market here as Q1 producers are unlikely to have the correct paperwork to import to us.

The minister of ………… would have to visit/contact the producers of Q5 food and point out to them the potential additional profits they would get from placing their goods on a market that takes the minimum cut possible.
He/She would also have to point out the agreement of all the top parties in the UK to keeping it at this level so the supplier wouldn’t suddenly find themselves hostage to electoral fortunes.

The UK factory owner gets it in the shorts here as they are now having to sell at price range 2 but they do get the relief from having VAT dropped to 1%.

Citizens get access to the cheapest food possible.

Government would be looking to re-coup any potential loss from the VAT change by an increase in total volume of sales by becoming the food market for the world.



So rather than piddle about making cosmetic changes to the rates what level or option are you a fan of?


~Alfagrem