What kinds of taxes do you use IYTU?

[JAFARR]

Nothing if sure except death and taxes. As if there aren't enough problems with the econimics of Traveller to keep the PCs broke, the rules don't mention taxes. Every government that has ever existed for any time frame at all has come up with a way to extract money from those with enough courage, gumption, expertice, etc to make money. Of cource we are talking about taxes. In a fudal society those taxes may have been in the way of troop levies paid for by the local lord who supplied them, but they were still a form of taxaction.

How do you handle taxes IYTU? Or do you ignore them and say that they are covered by port fees?

 

[parmasson]

Well:
Extra large ship docking fees
Small ship docking fees
Air tax (highport or unfriendly atmosphere)
Weapons permit fee
Cargo expediting fee
Road tolls
Airway tolls
Customs inspection fee
Refined fuel environmental impact tax
Gas giant skimming fee
Sales tax
Trade imbalance rectification tax
Local piracy suppression fund (got to pay the 41st somehow)
Sales tax
Value added tax
Environmental impact fund

Don’t forget…
Something for the dockworkers guild
A little something for the local customs inspection agent


Admin, birbery, legal all help...

 

[Black Globe Generator]

Originally posted by Andy Fralix:
How do you handle taxes IYTU? Or do you ignore them and say that they are covered by port fees?

While I've considered adding taxes into the game, I've never done anything more than think about it - instead I assume that taxes are inherent in prices and upkeep charges already, thereby keeping it in the background for the most part.

Some planets will have different fees, tariffs, and so on, but mostly as flavor or an adventure element.

 

[mike wightman]

An "air tax" is a common theme in some Traveller adventures IIRC.

Landing fees and fuel prices probably incorporate taxation, as do ship maintenance costs an cost of living expenses.

After that it's up to the planetary government to enforce its tax gathering policy on a group of Travellers, paid in a wadge of used credits stuffed in an old envelope

 

[Pickles]

IMTU:

Unless the PCs have a fixed abode, rather than a starship, taxes don't come into their lives directly. You can assume everything they pay for has been taxed in some way or another, so there's no way to avoid indirect taxation. On the whole, it's not something that has entered any of my games.

 

[TheEngineer]

Hmm, after 20 years of playing Traveller I notice one aspect, which is really fictional:

We never paid a cent of tax in Traveller

...

 

[robject]

Berthing fees are simply berthing fees.

Taxes are VAT IMTU.

For us Americans who aren't in the know: VAT means they're hidden in the overall cost of the thing.

 

[princelian]

IMTU, the basis of the taxes for Imperial citizens is a transactional tax. You use the Imperial Credit - for anything - you pay for the privilege. In peacetime, it's a 1% transactional tax; in wartime it is 1.5% and has gone as high as 2% when the Imperium has gotten desperate.

1% tax, you ask!?!? That's NOTHING, you say??!?

It would be if it was a sales tax, but it's a transactional tax. Here's how it works for the purchase of a Cr 1 pencil in a spaceport's gift shop:

You buy the pencil, using a Credit, which costs you Cr 0.01 in tax. The shopkeeper also pays Cr 0.01 in tax for getting the money.

When the shopkeeper bought the pencil (which only cost him 1/2 a Cr), he paid another 0.005 in tax on it, and so did the warehouse he bought it from.

The warehouse, which bought it en masse from the wholesaler, paid only 0.1 Cr per pencil, which was another 2 x 0.001 Cr for tax.

The factory paid its workers their salaries, etc., to produce the pencil, and each of those transactions was taxed, but the part that applies to the cost of the pencil was another 0.05 Cr for the actual cost of making the pencil, which is another 2 x 0.0005 Cr for tax.

0.0005 x 2 + 0.001 x 2 + 0.005 x 2 + 0.01 x 2
is 0.033 Cr in tax on a 1 Cr pencil, all told. And this isn't a very "deep" example, where you'd have to look at the cost of food for the lumberjack, salaries, etc., all of which are taxed that little bit for the privilege of using the Credit.

Sure, the vendors all pass on the cost of the tax to the next guy, and it's included in that Cr 1 cost for convenience's sake.

Bottom line - I charge straight prices for things, and assume the tax is included. Now, if the players want to barter and avoid using the Credit, they can do so, but even specie will fill up a ship's cargo hold pretty darned fast. The only way to deal with HUGE amounts of money is electronically.

My Cr 0.02 for the day

 

[epicenter00]

As a group, Traveller PCs tend to be a bunch of tax evaders. The kind of income they make isn't easily tracked by local governments. If they pay taxes at all, they probably fill out "unemployed" or "self-employed" on their tax returns.

Mind you, governments are probably onto this little thing with spacers - why do you think recertification of starships costs so much? Do you think it's all refurbishing and the costs of inspecting a ship?

Starports probably have a VAT / sales tax on everything.

 

[parmasson]

Hmmmm a 1% tax on money! Fantastic idea

"For us Americans who aren't in the know: VAT means they're hidden in the overall cost of the thing."

Then you can slap on a 10% sales tax, offer them a 5% rebate and they think they are getting a deal!

If they go broke then they can go to Imperial debtor's prison, even more adventure!

 

[Spinward Scout]

Would the Imperium need taxes with the Imperial Family holding as much MegaCorp stock that they own? Now the Sector and Subsector locality would need some kind of income. Unless the Dukes and Barons take their lead from the Imperial Family and delve into Sector and Subsector stocks.

 

[parmasson]

^Who said anything about NEEDING the money?
You think you get a vote?

 

[aramis]

IMTU. the Imperium levies taxes upon subordinate governments, not people.

Further, most of the nobles own the majority of the stocks of the Sector and Subsector corps, as well as major chunks of megacorps.

The imperial taxes are fairly low: Cr5 per year per person resident according too IISS records, plus keep the noble fed, housed, and provided with staff.

But, by the same token, the Emperor is getting about 1% of the stock of non-planetary concerns.

 

[Fritz_Brown]

Originally posted by princelian:
My Cr 0.02 for the day

So, have you paid the Cr0.0002 transaction tax on that?

I agree with most here that it's typically more subtle than many Americans think. I think there's a VAT and there's fees (like the ones Kurega mentioned - there's always fees) and something resembling a transaction tax (though I don't see how it would be enforced).

Then, there's the local taxes - mostly in the form of fees. Hotels are more streamlined than they used to be, but have any of you seen the bits normally tacked onto your bill? There are always at least two different taxes/fees added - usually about 10-20% of your bill. And, the fees/taxes on your phone bill? Sheesh.

What about a tax on airwave usage? Characters are always bringing their own comm gear. Why would the world allow this to go on unregulated? You either use comm gear produced on planet or you pay an exorbitant fee to use your own (much more secure) equipment. And, of course, you risk legal entanglements if you didn't read the 3I version of the Foreign Clearance Guide before landing....

 

[archhealer]

LOTs of individual planets levy their own taxes IMTU. The Imperium itself taxes governments. Taxes vary from world to world, but oftentimes, if a world/system has no readily available fuel source, it'll tax fuel very heavily, or if there's no atmosphere, it may even tax air. Depends on the planet.

 

[princelian]

Originally posted by Fritz88: </font><blockquote>quote:</font><hr />
Originally posted by princelian:
My Cr 0.02 for the day

So, have you paid the Cr0.0002 transaction tax on that?
</font>[/QUOTE]Absolutely! See the discussion after the next bit....

I agree with most here that it's typically more subtle than many Americans think. I think there's a VAT and there's fees (like the ones Kurega mentioned - there's always fees) and something resembling a transaction tax (though I don't see how it would be enforced).

It's enforced by virtue of electronic money. Most people use their "Credit card," which is not a bank card that you can borrow against (although those exist, of course). It's an electronic record of your transactions, your balance, and when it plugs into the free-but-mandatory Credit reader, it shoots the 0.0002 tax right on up to the Imperial net.

On worlds where the TL is too low for that, the likelihood of the local government using Imperial Credits is somewhat lower anyhow, so it's probably moot. But when the PCs use Cr to do business at the spaceport, the tax is counted, and if they used Cr to buy all the jewels and platinum they need for trade on the desert TL3 world, they paid the transactional tax at the previous world.

Is there cheating and tax evasion? To be sure! And using Credit notes (which can have any denomination) and coins (which go up to 100 Cr) can get around it, somewhat. However, to encourage using e-Cr and to cover the probability that people using paper Cr won't count up their taxes right, there's a 5% charge for getting paper money [the first time]. That way, the first few transactions are "covered" by whoever needed the cash-money, and while the Imperium doesn't usually track down cash-using tax-evaders, it *IS* technically a violation of Imperial law, and it can be useful later, in the can't-get-Capone-on-criminal-charges-so-we-charge-him-with-tax-evasion sense.

NO ONE, from Sector Duke on down, wants to face Imperial auditors. They, like the Navy, don't have to follow any of those annoying rules the citizenry have. [The Navy's example is their ability to ignore the injunction against nuclear weapon releasse...YOU can't use 'em, but THEY can.]

More of my Cr 0.02, tax-included.

 

[jasper]

I use a flat 10% income tax which the people can pay quartly or yearly. But it based on their salaries as crew postions. So they maybe in the red at the end of year.
I also use some the stuff mentioned here.

 

[JAFARR]

Well I asked the first question, maybe I should have given my answer then, but I was sort of rushed at the time, so I'll give it now.

Generally I assume taxes are included in the form of VAT as others have discussed unless I want to use taxes as part of the local color. These are usually a minor part of the whole. IIRC, though they were a major issue in some the old blue "Traveller Adventure" softback. The PCs were contacted to help ship some high demand wines off world because the taxes imposed to ship them were so high ... or something along the line. I haven't read that book in atleast a decade and a half so I may have the details wrong.

I had no real need of the info, just curious as to how others dealt with the subject. Thanks to all who answered.

 

[parmasson]

One more...
My guess is that the 3I tells worlds how much they owe and it is up to the locals to raise it. IRIS might only have a small office packed with auditors and somebody to coordinate the transfer of funds.

 

[Spinward Scout]

^Who said anything about NEEDING the money?
You think you get a vote?

Sorry, I guess I was looking at it from a U.S. point of view.