[Congress] Statement on Taxes

Day 1,845, 18:22 • Published in United Kingdom France • by Madacaion

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Disclaimer

Due to the change in current congress communication methods I am writing my views in a statement form as the message is over the word count for a PM - as requested by Goku, current MoLA.

Hopefully, even if you are not in congress, you will find this interesting. It is however a WoT. Your congress members are getting paid to read it - so don't feel obliged to make it to the end if your losing the will to live.

Please avoid full on discussion in the comments - and as a note to congress could you please ensure all replies are within the correct PM thread as required.

This communication methodology is new and currently in its infancy - I, like the rest of congress, am trying to do what is best for the eUK and follow the rules and guidelines set out by the current ruling party as to congressional conduct.

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1) Current Income

Tax is our primary income and by far the most stable (Carlini has the wonderful job of knowing just how stable so he can perhaps expand on this if required). We can use the MM to increase that figure by a percentage (could be 0, could be 40000%, no-one knows) of our tax income as such it is unstable and should be considered a secondary source of income.

Im sure even Carlini would be confident (90% probability or higher) that he could get 25% of tax income for the term from the MM (close to worst case senario) and the previous two terms we got around 80% and 50% respectfully <- Warning its late - these are remembered numbers - so they may well be wrong.

2) Current Spending

We currently earn less in taxes than we spend. If we had only 25% of tax income/term from the MM we would of been very close to break even. Very close.

3) Environmental factors

Currently the eRep summit is on - and there are some changes coming along. Is it wise to make any form of move when the future is so uncertain? Just because you've promised tax cuts doesnt mean it needs to be now. BA promised Q7's for the BEF before and faced a silly amount of scrutiny for implementing something that was in fact a bit silly. Please BA - don't make the same mistake twice!

However if even if you want to facilitate tax cuts we need to do either one or a mix of the below:

1) Spend less
2) Earn more in other areas (i.e. rebalance the tax)
3) Take a risk and believe that the MM will always give out more than 25%

That is the real question, and is more of a question of the cabinet rather than congress, as to which option they want to do. The proper financial stewardship of the eUK is something that I will tirelessly campaign for - as im sure most of my learned colleagues in the house would join me in such an endeavour - and anything that strays towards option 3 without carlini explicitly promising such (i.e. its 90%+ certain) would not be proper stewardship imho.

Come back to congress when you have worked out what you want to cut with your cabinet and tell us how much wiggle room you think we have. Your policy is that of making tax cuts - now you just have to work out what spending you're going to cut to facilitate that.

My personal opinion?

Don't do this, and by all that is still left in the eWorld dont do it before we even really know what changes the admins are going to make. If you're set on this path make your spending cuts before changing the tax levels. Work out in real terms how much extra that gives you - and use the extra money from that trial and research period to buy a tonne of food for the NHS.

Cheers,

~ Madacaion