1% Work Tax - Why we should keep it forever:
Day 3,813, 09:00
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Published in USA 
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by
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by Marcelaxy
Hi,
when the occupation of the eUSA began I strongly advocated decreasing our Work Tax to 1% to reduce the money our occupants can take by a split of up to 80% from our economical activities as much as possible.
Sadly, only about half of the congress had enough common sense to approve this law. This is why I am trying to teach them some more common sense and more to bring them in the right direction.
Why we should keep 1% taxes forever, even after we liberated all (or all essential) regions of the eUSA:
1. Reputation & taking Hostages
As a 1% tax country in 2017, the USA was the go-to country for producers from all over the world. With max. resources in many regions it was a no-brainer to place House, Food and Weapon Companies of all kinds here.
This leads to two advantages.
Foreign players think positively about the eUSA as the nice country giving them access to a number of full resources for a low price.
This leads to a second phenomenom: Governemnts will be less likely to attack eUSA to not take away their citizens' accesses to their US-based companies and citizens will be less likely to fight against and more likely to fight for the eUSA (taking Hostages). Obviously, strong Fighters are less likely to be Producers, but it can make a difference.
2. We are NOT your Cash Cow!
When reading from and discussing with Government Members, I only hear about income targets and their holy treasury. The only thing that matters for them is reaching the 400k treshold and collecting as much of our money as possible. They barely care about what damages their tax policies can cause.
They treat us as their personal Cash Cow.
US Citizens will feel ignored and taken advantage of by such a cash-grab. Together with the obvious economical disadvantages this can lead to frustration and leaving the game.
For foreign Citizens it's even worse. They feel scammed by a bait&switch scheme and angry on us and our government.
3. Inflation
Salaries and prices for goods produced by employee work are steadily increasing (in the recent weeks, they exploded...). Weapons and maybe Food could follow soon. The Gold price is currently increasing but only slowly due to the 500cc-Barrier after which the next barrier will be at 1000cc.
This causes a natural increase of the tax income all across the board with no punch-them-in-the-face tax increase needed.
4. Growth
Also lower taxes will mean more incentive to buy more WaM companies and earn money for even more companies. This obviously doesn't grow indefinitely. At some point everyone is statisfied with their number of WaM companies or can't/doesn't want to spend more health on WaM. It should be enough to compensate a substantial amount when comparing 1% to 2%.
I for example, now with the 1% work tax, have more employees than ever at the highest wage than ever. 1563 at the moment (and I need them for my 2050 work places). This creates a lot of tax income from "Work" and VAT. At least it would do if we were free...
Also with more goods on the market and more statisfied citizens, we have more material to burn when it comes to an attack again.
5. COs are useless, the Treasury is overrated.
Even with tens of Millions of CO-money, we couldn't defend eUSA. Neither on the first series of air strikes where allies, not CO-money, bailed us out nor on the second series of air strikes which caused the complete and long-lasting occupation of the eUSA.
Decrease the tax to the minimum and use the surplus more wisely. Instead of letting it rott in the treasury before burning it all in a few battles, let's do more for the community. Create Government Programs to subsidise Q1 and maybe Q2 Houses, Subsidise buying companies and placing them in a wisely-selected US region. Support Streamers like Clopoyaur (are there other relevant ones?) and increase our popularity worldwide.
Obviously some... simple-minded people will tell that all I wanna do is being selfish and making profit... accusing and shaming instead of actual arguments.
Yes, everyone would and should profit from that.
Yes, in politics it's about evaluating interests of different groups and people and deciding if and how they should be given an advantage or disadvantage without causing too much damage elsewhere.
My promise: When the eUSA has all its important regions back & connected and keeps the minimum VAT&Work Tax, I will donate every cc-cent I save on WaM compared to 2% Work Tax. Either lazily to the government via donation to an official or to an NGO charity inside the eUS or I do my own.
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Agreed.
In my opinion, it is hard to want to pay taxes when you feel like the government was reckless and blew all the money it earned.
Very hard.
Strong individual means strong country, not the opposite.
When you take as much as you can from your citizens to make the Government stronger than you sooner or later end up with a weak Government and no one strong enough to cover for it, because those who would cover for it already spent too much making them strong.
STRONG INDIVIDUALS!!
I think that this is another example of RL economics and eRep economics being different. In eRep we don't tend to see any decrease in production when taxes are increased. But we do tend to see a direct correlation between the treasury doing well, and the government investing in helping new players, which is good for all of us. I'm not saying that 1% work tax is a terrible idea, but your thought process behind it might be flawed.
But I've been wrong before.
I have to contradict you. Higher taxes means lower production since companies become unprofitable and unsused. The effect of lower taxes is also there but less immediate.
It's easier to hire employees and you have more incentive to buy new companies.
Also the treasury doing well just means a maniac of a CP will decide to have some "fun" and attack a random country which backlashes and destroys the treasury AND the production.
Just consider the $ diff for company owners when the government is devouring most(sometimes ALL) of already LOW profit margins. Work tax hurts workers like it does companies. VATS are more selective, but, in my experience have watched "ill informed" USA govt just raise and lower flat across the board. This is obviously because congress and CP's are OVERWHELMED by rational from economic advisors. I experienced this first hand on the old EC. I left because I was tired of arguing.
... and transferring wealth from the people and their very generous (like Marcel) EMPLOYERS... to CRAZED glory seeking CPs? What do you think will happen? Until we Americans can find a way to elect and KEEP leaders who know how to get along with the BEST leaders in the game(honesty and real commitment)...
The way things are now, even a very small but STRONG country, operating as a "national merc-force" COULD not only take but could HOLD this nation for a LONG time.
Our children may be born as Croatian citizens.
ich verwalte gerne deinen Überschuss ! 🙂
"They treat us as their personal Cash Cow." Yes definetely. Most of the "forum" players don't even play ingame anymore let alone invest time and/or money to help the community as is evident from their damage on the battle field. It's easier to spend the money earned by active players ! Reminds me of the definition of socialism or worse communism !
Nope, this is the definition of Captitalism. Lazy capitalists hoarding and eventually spending the money their employees work hard for.
(analogies are pretty flexible...)
Nope 🙂 I was talking about the state raising taxes as high as possible and creating some totalitarian state dominated by a self-perpetuating political system..That sounds pretty close to what our meta gov in Erep has been doiung the last few years.
Capitalists take the risk of the investment. If they go bankrupt they're screwed, but their employees don't go into debt. In socialism everyone are screwed.
Also the employees consent to work for a certain salary so there is no exploitation.
I would assume that you, the e-capitalist of the game would know better.
1% work tax - keep it forever!
Only think I might have done differently Marcel is to make your #5 a point #1.
The myth of a 'defensive' reserve has forever been shattered. Further it only gives a country that does 1/2 of another's damage output think they can take offensive action against the stronger country. If the last 4 months have shown nothing, it is the reserve was totally useless.
Granted it was spent to a very large degree very early in the conflict. These kinda conflicts see crucial battles well after the initial attack at a point that any reserve is gone.
Good to see you plugging along on these issues. I have been a little busy testing out how to best irritate our occupiers. I have a couple of new 'friends' to prove it.
I saved the best for the last...
This country has been run by some shitheads who think other peoples factories belong to them.
Fortunately anyone can place their raws and factories abroad.
I wish the government had the participation of someone who had just a slight hint on economics in order to allow them to make community sound decisions. Unfortunately there is none.
Some dumbass lead us to a wipe just for the lulz.
Probably the same moron or someone else will make the others (us) pay higher taxes because of their previous stupid actions.
Dont be so quick to judge. One good reason is because people that want to effect change like Marcel here have not run for congress. (cept the 2) when were those Marcel? ever coming back to congress?
I Love Milton Friedman you can watch a few of his lectures on you tube if you want. what i take away is the idea is that political policies do not influence anything in the long run. and such it is worthless for a economics nor business man to get involved in politics. his videos on tariffs talk a bit more about how currency fluctuations make tariffs worthless . but because we do not have separate currencies those fluctuations are generally hidden in the labor markets
If the government raises taxes, owners lower salaries or raise prices. or some combination of both.
now that usa lost housing bonuses we see house prices skyrocket and wages rise less slowly such that now profits per average work ticket are exactly the same that they used to be for producing a house.
it is super cool, sure reducing taxes and other "government regulations" produces a more efficient market that allows for faster quality of life growth but it does not really matter.
if one region gets a bunch of factories to be built there the competition for wages will be high and thus profits low. and if lots of people wam, prices will be low and the return on capital will go down and people would build else where.
tl:dr; in economics nothing really matters. so the better a person is at economics the less likely they will be in politics.
@Gabrielz_Horn I think this was in 2010 or 2011 in eGermany with the KPeD...
@jkeller4000 This is a good theory but like all theories on society etc. it isn't 100% true. Switzerland, Luxemburg, Singapore etc. and other small countries have become rich due to exotic policies. They are generally more open to trade and sometimes are tax havens.
Also you say lower work tax -> more WaM -> lower prices -> equal profit -> doesn't matter, but it does. There are more products you and others can use. If this matters in this game is another question...
Also when there's more WaM in eUSA and we are decreasing prices, we are decreasing profits in other countries as well, slowly letting them bleed out...
Start to get rid of all the stupid rules and regulations in Congress who, by the way, just serve one purpose mainly to keep a status quo. You would be amazed how many players would participate again if the decisison making process would be easier quicker and more transparent!
eUSA has an huge natural advantage in terms of bonus.
If only it had a predictable low tax policy it would attract players with big economic empires.
Bigger tax revenues would be accomplished with lower tax rates.
With its predatory tax policy it only alienates business.
I have never seen it laid out so categorically before. Why have you waited till now to lay it all out like this shame on you.
I am also of the strong opinion that plato should endorse this.
on #5 i think they should subsidize q3 houses alot can already get q1 and q2 at least.
CO's aren't "useless." In this case, both sides used CO's, which cancelled each other out. Other things being equal, CO's can be quite valuable.
When im paid to fight it is very valuable to me.
So they cancel each other out and, well, become useless.
I think Marcel was arguing from the effects perspective. They “big pile o’cash” defence has clearly failed. Let’s not do that again.
Why bother arming soldiers with weapons? After all, the other side will have weapons, too, so weapons are useless.
You understand precisely what I’m saying, but instead choose to deliberately misrepresent me?
Fine, I will spell it out in tiny details.
1. The focus of Congress for years was on the size of the pile of cash, and how quickly the country could make it meet a particular arbitrary size.
2. All other ways of defending the homeland were neglected. This includes having friends who will go the whole 9 yards (which implies we would do or actually do the same for them), an MPP stack worth a damn and fostering advanced military tactics amongst senior commanders.
3. In ththe absence of (2) and the contested nature of ;1) we were bound to lose.
My personal opinion is that congress fixated on (1) because it was measurable and involved nothing more than a political deal. Congress is/was full of political animals who don’t really do other things in the game, or they used to do other things but stopped at some point long in the past.
I responded to the logic, or lack thereof, in your statement. Your second statement might or might not be accurate; I don't know. But it has nothing to do with the value of COs. The putative failure of congress or the elites or whatever you people call them to form proper alliances and do a good job of organizing has nothing to do with whether or not amassing cash is a good idea. That I have to even type this out is kind of ... odd.
I really enjoyed this exchange.
The pile was insufficient, mainly because we we had 1% taxes for over a year...
Successive presidents have proved themselves utterly unable to keep their hands off the pile of cash. If it had been quarantined for defence only then it would have lasted longer, though it still wouldn’t have worked. Worse - Congress has no oversight because everything gets rung through SCI instead.
I’d love to see a breakdown of spending since Resource Wars 2 on offensive “fun” vs actually defending our cores and our allies.
So it’s not the taxes at fault but the POTUSes in charge that annoy you. So advocate for better Presies.
You truly should not ever raise taxes for more than 1%. However the reasons you stated are somewhat naive.
Well its 3% in the eUK as we have no strong/rich governmental donors and they like to have enough for a decent MPP stack.
But big ass nations should never go beyond 1%.
It does not matter what the tax is. Nothing really matters.This is a faceless nameless piece of ship economically, it's all about fighting so who really gives a fudge about taxes?
We engage in economy to enable fighting.
We fight to protect our economy.
This game is as much about economy as about fighting.
If you don’t like the tax rates, get a majority in Congress or leave. Most Americans believe in country > party > self. Obviously you don’t subscribe to that belief, so you might not be a great fit for the country. I can assure you taxes will go up after we regain our cores.
country > party > self
That's why I want 1% taxes. It's the best for the country.
country > party > self
Obviously YOU don't subscribe to that belief, so YOU might not be a great fit for the country.
Get out of here and back to North Korea or Atlantis or wherever you are really from.
"accusing and shaming instead of actual arguments."
stockpiling cash will not win wars. try instead to have a good diplomacy and strengthen relations with your allies, be a good ally in order to have good allies.
i have come to US only bz de 1% tax and since you are so sure tax will go back up once free i hope your country will stay occupied for a long time. you Oblige let aside you have no idea about economics, are also very narrow minded if your entire approach on the subject is ''you don't like it, leave''
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Good Point. If taxes are increased by these traitors when eUSA is free, it seems like I have to fight against the eUSA ¯\_(ツ)_/¯
@Joerx - this is a continuous and persistent argument from someone that has no interest in improving or participating in our community. I've had enough from him.
Also, if you hope the eUS stays occupied then you obviously don't understand how bonuses work, so don't think to lecture me on economics 🙂
You seem to be awfully defensive Marcel. You're shamelessly advocating for policies that benefit you personally. I also pay a ton of taxes and yet you don't see me moaning about the rates going up or down or whatever direction they go in.
Down-thread you literally threaten to fight against the eUSA - yet here you are pretending to be a patriot. Sorry, but none of your arguments hold any water.
"You seem to be awfully defensive Marcel."
That's called arguing. Accusing and shaming (what you are doing), this is defensive.
"You're shamelessly advocating for policies that benefit you personally."
I advocate policies that benefit everyone in the country, including the country itself.
"I also pay a ton of taxes"
Hahahaha. I pay at least an order of magnitude more in taxes than you.
"you literally threaten to fight against the eUSA"
Yep, I threaten to help the eUSA by fighting against it. Just like in the past you could have helped Germany by killing Hitler.
Marcel your entire argument is built on a house of sand. If you'd like we can dismiss the points one at a time.
1.) Obviously this didn't help with this invasion, and hasn't helped with the occupation. Done.
2.) This is entirely a red herring. No one wrote an article saying "1% taxes are here forever in the US" - if you don't like the tax policy, you are free to move with your feet and leave.
3.) Inflation produces incremental increases in tax gains which are largely offset by the decreased value of the money in question for COs. You literally dismiss your own argument.
4.) The return on most companies has a time horizon measured in years. Tax rates don't effect it meaningfully.
5.) This is probably the dumbest point you made and simply doesn't need to even be refuted. All countries dump millions of CC into COs on the regular. We've utilized them extremely effectively both during this war and in all of the previous resource wars that got the bonuses you're so fond of.
Lastly, let's also discuss the absurdity of comparing a 3% tax rate to Hitler.
Please, do us all a favor and leave so we don't need to read your articles anymore. You aren't an American. You don't want to participate or contribute in our community. That's fine. We don't want your companies, or tax revenue, or input.
Get. Out.
Oh come on Oblige, saying we've utilized the reserve well is like saying we rationed our last cup of drinkable water well. 1% forever!