System Taxes on the Finance Tab

[ucla_vince]

Could someone explain to me what the system tax does? When I adjusted the system tax rate, I noticed that neither the planetary income nor the empire income were affected. I don't see where system income is discussed anywhere. Where do system taxes go?

Thanks

[Proteus_MST]

We assume that System taxes will be distributed locally among the Planets within the System (so the rich planets pay some of the costs for the poorer Planets) and maybe also are used for Systemwide Projects (perhaps also for the Improvement of Starlanes?).

So it doesn´t affect your empirewide Budget.

But it is assumed that it is likewise not affected by the losses due to Corruption or Bureaucracy (it is believed, that a certain percentage, either fix or dependent on your HFoG is deducted from your Tax-Income to simulate these Losses) or at least not the way empirewide Taxes are.

[CharlesBHoff]

We really donot know what system and empire taxes do. If the poor manual and the change their make late in the game.

[Kloreep]

I read on the Infogrames forums that it just shunts the percentage to whatever planet has the system seat of government. If true, system taxes would be useful for planets full of Industry or Research; just build the System Seat of Government there and the other, more profitable planets in the system will send their profits to find the research and ship construction.

[CharlesBHoff]

It seem to me that the game manual are getting worst each
year. SSI and Micropose make the best game manual that realy explain what the control did and how to play the game
even it they did assume you where playing than computer game for the first time, that the way to write than game manual assume the player know nothing about the game or how to play the game.

[Anglophile]

Everything I have learned about taxes (by trial and error and from forums - the manual is interesting but essentially useless for many topics. The encyclopedia manages to be both useless and uninteresting (nevertheless I like the game)):

- your racial tax tolerance is related to the total of the system, empire and planetary tax levels. Your viceroys will automatically adjust you to this level (sometimes annoyingly, sometimes helpfully) but it does provide some ability to tune your unrest or raise taxes at the cost of unrest.

- if you change the system or empire tax levels, your viceroys will over a couple of turns raise or lower your planetary tax rates (across all your planets) to compensate.

- planetary taxes are spent on that planet.

- the system tax does get spent on the 'system seat' of each system. I believe that the system tax suffers some bureaucratic attrition. It is a good way to funnel money into the industrial powerhouse of a system.

- the empire tax is syphoned off the top and distributed to the most needy planets to assist their development in a pretty complex way and with a significant level of bureaucratic attrition.

You can therefore tune your tax levels to the on-going development of your empire. This turns out to be a pretty good system - and is very useful for example by turning the oppressometer up and your empire tax down to get the spies out (who are so much more effective than my spies) without having the whole empire going into terminal unrest.

I tend to turn the empire tax up early to speed the development of the first colonies and then down as the ratio of developed to undeveloped planets increases with time. Planetary tax is the most efficient route but both sytem and empire taxes serve very useful purposes in the game.

[Grumbold]

Nice summary Anglo

[yoink15]

Okay,

While we're on this topic of taxes, finance and budget....

What happens when you empty your treasury (imperial or planetary). The manual makes NO reference whatsoever (and I haven't seen anything on the forums) about what the effect of an empty (or negative) treasury has on your empire! When you run out of money...what happens? Do things stop being built? Is there more unrest? What's the deal? I ran out of money once, and actually went waaaaaay into the negative, and I couldn't discern any difference.

Also, is there a difference between having a zero or negative bank account on a planet vs. having a zero or negative imperial bank account?

-Yoink

[Grumbold]

If your planetary bank hits zero and you have a negative income you will lose improvements until the budget balances. I've had that happen a couple of times in blockaded systems.

[Proteus_MST]

And if your Imperial treasury falls below zero you have to pay interest, just like real States do