[Debate] Remove Medal Tax
UNL Congress
Greetings, citizens of Netherlands,
a new debate has been opened at the request of the President NoTie112.
With the increased financial security of the eNetherlands, the need of levying Congress Tax has decreased, as the amount collected is becoming relatively more insignificant in comparison to the overall budget. In addition, gold is a scarce good and for many individuals not in abundance; saving that 2.5G can make a difference for many!
People will still be able to donate on a voluntarily basis (i.e. almost any CP donates his entire CP medal gold), but it should no longer be obligatory.
Proposal:
* Remove Article 3 ''Medal Tax'' from ''Government Rules of the eNetherlands''
* Change Article 9.3 ''Blacklist'' in ''Congress Rules of the eNetherlands''
from:
3. Citizens of the eNetherlands can be put on or removed from the Blacklist by Congress by the voting procedure laid down in Article 7 with the exception that it needs a two-thirds majority to pass. An exception to this rule is the failure to pay the Medal Tax, as laid down in Chapter III, Article 3.
into:
3. Citizens of the eNetherlands can be put on or removed from the Blacklist by Congress by the voting procedure laid down in Article 7 with the exception that it needs a two-thirds majority to pass.
Results:
Yes: 13
No: 6
Neutral: 1
The proposal has been accepted.
Janty F and Shawtyl0w
CoC Team
Comments
Can the MoF give us numbers, instead of vague terms, so we can see in examples, how much would it "cost" to remove the tax, to get a better idea?
Besides the fact I am no MoF, but merely temporarily some of its tasks, the ''cost'' of such a proposal would be in the most extreme case:
40 Elected Congress Members * 2.5G = 100G
100 Gold * MM Rate (which at this point, is unusually high) = 68 000 cc
Now, eNL electing 40 people is very unlikely, considering some parties having a structural problem in filling their list of candidates. And even with a 30 people Congress, like we have now, most of the time it does not even get ''filled''. So let's say 30-40k on a high average.
That is equal to two days of our own tax income (without concessions, MM) or in a full month budget it would be at most 3%-5% of the total available funds. And previous concerns about the need of gold are taken away by a relatively unlimited supply of gold on the MM Program, as well as more flexibility in exchanging cc-gold by previous and current financial administrations.
* This is all very flexible though, depending on the differing size of Government Budgets and Exchange Rates on the Monetary Market.
All in all, a price that is acceptable to cut unnecessary bureaucracy and importantly keeping a scarce good in the hands of our citizens, who are not all big fighters with lots of medals (who do not pay tax over that 😉 )
So we can say it is below 10% even in worst scenario case.
That is correct.
ancient thing, when it was main source of income. We can delete it
Just because it has become less of our total income does not mean we should just discard one of the guaranteed means of income.
I'm genuinely interested how this is a ''guaranteed means of income'' and others are not. Hint: if we're conquered, it is as ''guaranteed'' as any other income (tax, concession fees) 😉
Following that line of thought, we can't decrease taxation on our citizens, ever. The goal of the Government is not to hog money - especially if in addition royal rewarding schemes can be afforded.
Considering that in a teleological sense the Medal Tax is completely obsolete (it was designed for gold collection for i.e. Training Grounds) and was never set in place to (slightly) increase budgets, it is the first thing that should be abolished and given back to citizens!
something that sums up to 3-4 days of extra tax income shouldn't be considered obsolete. and if cm's are only in it for the gold they are unfit to hold the position.
Describing yourself by any chance, odan?
It seems the argument is lost on you 😉. It is exactly obsolete as it was not designed as ''extra tax income'' and an extra to the budget. If we were to impose this tax now in a hypothetical situation where it didn't exist before, it wouldn't make sense one bit in this day and age.
You will still be free to donate the full 5 gold on your own, Dirk, considering your philosophy of who is fit to hold a Congress seat.
Great idea! I might vote in favour! 😉
Credits to ElGorro!
Blacklist the people who pay the medal tax! No, wait... 😃
That depends....
The tax was introduced with the intention to guarantee a steady flow of gold so we could afford programms that cost gold. Back then we hardly had anything. Communes for instance were near impossible to afford due to some mismanagement. Also unforeseen matters that cost gold and are desired could come up. Less likely than the desiire for extra communes though. It should be ensured that the steady gold increase continues. For instance by forcing gov to use part of budget to buy gold. As explained above that only costs a fraction of budget. It also makes people aware of the fact we miss the gold income and reintroduce it if budget declines to the minimalistic sizes it had a few years ago.
Apart from that the taxation also helped in preventing goldhunter CM that actually added nothing. I think that risk is less nowadays but might return if the taxation is gone.
Luckily we nowadays have access to very large supplies of gold in the active Monetary Program. If the need ever arises, hundreds/thousands of gold can be accessed in a matter of days. This in addition to ordinary gold supplies in the Ministerie of Economische Zaken, as well as the Emergency Fund in DNB.
There's still gold to get in the current situation that would attract gold-hunters. Sadly, any measures to be selective of Congressmen are not really to be applied in the current situation - with a consistent large number of seats and several parties that structurally lack candidates.. 🙁
Indeed if we need gold we can just buy it on the monetary market
Not entirely as it is limited by budget. You can only convert part of budget into gold and if you need more you need congress approval for use of EF. Will likely last too long for swift actions. So IMO it's still best to keep a steady flow of gold income. And yes I know it likely is not even saved as gold as it is likely added to budget by converting it into cc. Started a few years back by someone I would indeed expect it from yet I guess it's still done nowadays 😡
Thing is IMO the focus is too much on short term management. It is rather possible we will go back one day to the time we had 50k budget a month and we will not be well prepared. And no I don't mean we should put a lot in EF 😉
The Monetary Market Program is not tied to the budget; So there's an ever-growing and flexible source of Gold and CC in case this is needed (i.e. Communes, or additions to the budgets based on its profits if the budget take a deep dive). It may not be immediately apparent, but the rationale of the continuous work on the MM is indeed long term management - hence it is not part of month-to-month governments and (in most cases) budgets.
I plead before.. 50% of MM income of previous month can/should be added to the monthly budget. That would result in (on avg.) +/- 400k extra budget a nice amount of gold
That is probably a discussion for another day Shawty 😃 . If there is no need for the MM profits to be added to the budget (like in the recent past) I wouldn't say it is smart to spend. MM profits are extremely volatile, one month it can be 1 million, another month barely 50-100k. Better to treat it as a long-term storage for extraordinary purposes, like for example more and faster additional communes (!), which is a sure way to gain consistent income for our Military Programs.
That is besides the fact that more money in the MM = more profit 😉 And although we currently have a lot of orgs dedicated to it and with a sizeable amount that exceeds the efficient limits, there are still possibilities to expand it to all orgs, including the Government/Congress one.
Since I've started to use all 5 houses my gold stash is depleting, so that 2.5G every now and then is very welcome to me!
Why would you use all 5? That's an instant loss...
If one wants to push himself to the limit in regards to fighting and using every little bit of ff, I'd say it is a good reason. But not at all financially feasible for most people indeed 😃 In fact, it could be argued that all that cc spent on Houses is better spent on say, a Power Pack
Or leave that onr and reduce the Work Tax to 1% 🤔
*insert whynotboth.png*
That's too radical for NoTie, leave that to actual experts on the topic 😛
As long as the result is achieved, I don't mind who the radical ones are 🙂