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A Sword Without a Hilt: A Song of Ice and Fire/D&D 3.5 Crossover

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TalonofAnathrax said:
-[X] Property Tax:
--[X] A 1% Property Tax will be levied against the holdings of all legal entities (private citizens, guilds, merchant consortiums, companies, etc) operating within the Imperium which are not wholly owned and operated by the state if the total assessed value of their properties exceeds 1,000 IM.
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1% is excessive.

Think about how much money it pays nowadays a low-risk investment: a high-yield savings account. 2,3% interest per year. 1% goes to the goverment. Then you have 1,3%, which is likely to be less than inflation.
1% is a lot for wealth taxes. Not that I actually care about the rich guys... but we always have to be mindful of the incentives to generate wealth in the economy. An outsider might simply go and think "Wait, so here the Dragon king will confiscate all my wealth in only a hundred years? Fuck it, I'm going back to Armun Kelisk".
 
Tomcost said:
1% is excessive.

Think about how much money it pays nowadays a low-risk investment: a high-yield savings account. 2,3% interest per year. 1% goes to the goverment. Then you have 1,3%, which is likely to be less than inflation.
1% is a lot for wealth taxes. Not that I actually care about the rich guys... but we always have to be mindful of the incentives to generate wealth in the economy. An outsider might simply go and think "Wait, so here the Dragon king will confiscate all my wealth in only a hundred years? Fuck it, I'm going back to Armun Kelisk".
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I sincerely encourage stupendously wealthy expatriates to stay citizens of their home plane's polity. They are already "as rich as the state"-tier wealthy and their involvement as a private citizen complicates our relationship with their home state significantly.
 
Tomcost said:
1% is excessive.

Think about how much money it pays nowadays a low-risk investment: a high-yield savings account. 2,3% interest per year. 1% goes to the goverment. Then you have 1,3%, which is likely to be less than inflation.
1% is a lot for wealth taxes. Not that I actually care about the rich guys... but we always have to be mindful of the incentives to generate wealth in the economy. An outsider might simply go and think "Wait, so here the Dragon king will confiscate all my wealth in only a hundred years? Fuck it, I'm going back to Armun Kelisk".
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Where did you get the idea that a savings account was a valid comparison?

Due to the 1000 IM entry (which is a lot!), this is a 1% tax on people who own businesses, etc. These people don't leave their money in a savings account.
Savings accounts are for the poor. IRL rich people don't leave their money in the bank, they invest it in homes and shares.

Oh, and today's interest rates are very low.
 
Crake said:
I sincerely encourage stupendously wealthy expatriates to stay citizens of their home plane's polity. They are already "as rich as the state"-tier wealthy and their involvement as a private citizen complicates our relationship with their home state significantly.
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Okay, so that's another idea. We encourage growth and personal work here, and mainly for mortals. We won't get many outsiders who will settle in our realm.

I mean, I don't dislike it, but I like it being a cosmopolitan polity.


TalonofAnathrax said:
Where did you get the idea that a savings account was a valid comparison?

Due to the 1000 IM entry (which is a lot!), this is a 1% tax on people who own businesses, etc. These people don't leave their money in a savings account.
Savings accounts are for the poor. IRL rich people don't leave their money in the bank, they invest it in homes and shares.

Oh, and today's interest rates are very low.
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I'm taking it from the optic of the guy who doesn't take risks and just wants to enjoy their wealth. But I guess that if you are rich you gotta take some risks.
Anyway, you have to make it explicit that this wealth tax is deductible from the income tax. It distorts the math if you don't.
 
Tomcost said:
Okay, so that's another idea. We encourage growth and personal work here, and mainly for mortals. We won't get many outsiders who will settle in our realm.

I mean, I don't dislike it, but I like it being a cosmopolitan polity.
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The Imperium is still fairly cosmopolitan just taking into account its own future demographics in mortal citizens.

And technically speaking our borders, while not transparently open to each other, are alarmingly easy to pass through for economic or recreational travel on both ends. There's very little incentive for a hyper-rich Outsider to become an Imperial Citizen, unless they were already starting from the bottom again, for some reason.
 
That 95% Income Tax is excessive. There is a reason the highest income tax rate in the world still isnt too much over 50%. After a certain point it just stifles product more than it helps boost revenue.

I'd say a ceiling of 50-55% is the most and after that just keep it that way. Especially since you will not be leaving dividends and interest untaxed. Not to mention anyone making that kind of money is pretty much a party member or a dragon and will get exemptions anyway.


You try and charge Amrelath a 95% tax and there will be a dead dragon.
 
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Abhishek M said:
That 95% Income Tax is excessive. There is a reason the highest income tax rate in the world still isnt too much over 50%. After a certain point it just stifles product more than it helps boost revenue.

I'd say a ceiling of 50-55% is the most and after that just keep it that way. Especially since you will not be leaving dividends and interest untaxed. Not to mention anyone making that kind of money is pretty much a party member or a dragon and will get exemptions anyway.

You try and charge Amrelath a 95% tax and there will be a dead dragon.
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While I wouldn't mind capping it at 50% or 60%, from what I assumed the Income Tax would only apply to the proceeds of money earned via work, returns on investments, etc.

Stuff he earns adventuring would be property and subject to the 1% property tax.

@TalonofAnathrax?
 
Goldfish said:
While I wouldn't mind capping it at 50% or 60%, from what I assumed the Income Tax would only apply to the proceeds of money earned via work, returns on investments, etc.

Stuff he earns adventuring would be property and subject to the 1% property tax.
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This is indeed the case.

Edit: This is just because a PC is the only person that has any right adventuring. Say you have an expedition, and they kill some monsters with advanced weaponry but most of it is "point and shoot" and they're employing hundreds of private military contractors to do it, and then they extract wealth out of the bodies, or their lairs, or hulk an ancient construct for scrap and valuable reagents.

Can you tax them? Yes, because they are a business and too much of what allows them to be a business is tied up in the economy, so they are benefiting from the churn of the system.

Can you tax a PC who does that with a half dozen other dudes who each could probably slaughter a small army individually, or rout a large one?

No, and if you tried they could just renounce citizenship and you'd have to determine if going after them was really worth what was ultimately just a dozen or fewer CR 20 encounters worth of wealth by level.

It's not, and PCs and prime adventuring locales aren't going to make a quantitative difference on the economy, but they might make a qualitative difference on the effectiveness of your military if you've alienated everyone else over level 10.
 
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Goldfish said:
While I wouldn't mind capping it at 50% or 60%, from what I assumed the Income Tax would only apply to the proceeds of money earned via work, returns on investments, etc.

Stuff he earns adventuring would be property and subject to the 1% property tax.

@TalonofAnathrax?
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And you think Amrelath isnt gonna invest after we drilled that into his head? Besides the 50% isnt just for him. After a certain point it really does just incentivize letting your capital stay idle instead of letting it flow.

Afterall what's the incentive for an Archmage to spend a couple more weeks on another comission if he will only get to keep 5% of that money? People being incentivized to work is pretty important in a setting where the greatest money earner is magic.
 
Crake said:
From their point of view they had every right to do so, being Gods.
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Their perspective on what they did is interesting, but doesn't matter much to the morality of what they did. Everyone thinks they're justified but it's the strength of their argument that matters, not their certainty in it.

I can't conceive of an argument that makes deliberately allowing anyone to be subject to a process that makes the brass mint look gentle acceptable, especially for entities that claim a moral high ground over the rest of creation.

Maybe it's a limit of my imagination, or there was some larger act of coercion, but purely on the basis of deliberately choosing to do that to someone instead of simply erasing them I feel they've proven themselves unworthy of worship.

They're better than Hell, but they don't live up to their own hype.


Goldfish said:
While I wouldn't mind capping it at 50% or 60%, from what I assumed the Income Tax would only apply to the proceeds of money earned via work, returns on investments, etc.

Stuff he earns adventuring would be property and subject to the 1% property tax.

@TalonofAnathrax?
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What? The main means that people earn insane, economy breaking, amounts of money is through concentration of capital ownership -not work.

How did we start out looking for a way to control immortal robber barons and end up taxing everyone else?
 
BronzeTongue said:
Maybe it's a limit of my imagination, or there was some larger act of coercion, but purely on the basis of deliberately choosing to do that to someone instead of simply erasing them I feel they've proven themselves unworthy of worship.
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By their own understanding, the people they were consigning to Hell were bound for punishment at that point already as they were basically written off as not worth the effort of flipping to the "political sphere" of 'Good'. This isn't a moral decision, it's a pragmatic one, made by people as-written and described by the author as definitely blinded by their own hype. They had done monumentally great things, fantastic things, things that would make you or I weep to gaze upon, yet we can still freely condemn them because the whole basis of the Pact was that those Gods wanted to content themselves in what they had wrought and ignore the mounds of bodies tread upon to make it possible, because busy-body Asmodeus needed just a little more soul-fire, his army needed to be just a little bit bigger a little more efficient and he needed to corral the Abyss a fraction of a percent more than he previous eon in order to keep up with quarterly reviews.

It's being stuck in a rut for so long that they believe Asmodeus will always just be that malcontent who is now perfectly happy focusing all of his attention on the War instead of bothering with political nonsense, and they are actually breathing a sigh of relief because Asmodeus is Kind of A Big Deal, quote unquote, and there is always a bunch of Celestials kicking up a fuss and saying they need to contribute more to the war effort. Now he has free reign and the warhawks are happy.

They were wrong, but the timescale this all occurred on is centered on the same metric that one group who started out with the best intentions paved the way to hell because they resented the moral fiber of those above them, ironically. How is it moral not to eliminate the threat of the Abyss' encroachment upon the universe? Asmodeus wasn't asking them to tear down Heaven to pay for the war, after all.

Not at first, anyway.
 
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Here's a version of mine and @TalonofAnathrax's combined plan where I adjusted the income tax rate to cap out at 50%.

Will this work for y'all, @Abhishek M, @BronzeTongue?

[X] Inheritance & Taxes
-[X] Inheritance :
--[X] PREAMBLE : In the public preamble of our law, we explicitly explain the long-term economic and social issues linked to Reincarnation, immortality and wealth concentration we're seeking to avoid, and we proclaim the following long-term objectives :
---[X] Long-term objective : Avoid monopolies and overly large private private businesses or trusts.
---[X] Long-term objective : Taxation is to be progressive, to an eventual soft-cap disincenvitizing hoarding.
---[X] Long-term objective : Limit appointments to high-level posts in the administration to try to stop a single group from having too much influence in one area if possible. Efficiency remains paramount, of course.
---[X] Long-term objective : Encourage the development of new colonies, avoiding the family domination of some Shaitan colonies.
---[X] Long-term objective : Guarantee a basic standard of living for all to limit unrest. This is to be done through sound economic policies as well as a government safety net for tasks that cannot be met by the market and that currently rely solely on rather disorganized charity.
---[X] Hidden long-term objective : Not indicated in writing anywhere, but shared with Companions. We hope to create an artificial Heaven and/or to fix the old one.
-[X] All existing taxes are to be reassessed and revised to remove impediments to trade, innovation, setting up new businesses, travel, and taxes that are regressive. Some taxes on specific goods or practices can be maintained as incentives towards certain behaviors, or to fund the costs such activities entail for local authorities. However these taxes are to be as universal as possible : we seek to minimise variations in tax laws between parts of our Empire as much as possible. This goal is publicly announced, and local Lords who must raise additional taxes are advised to follow it as much as possible.
-[X] Tax collection : Local Lords remain in charge of collecting taxes, and their own tax obligations to the Crown ("the Crown's share") are unchanged, although they may have to pay personal taxes depending on their own wealth and holdings. However, in case of repeated problems or if the Lord desires, the Crown can provide tax collectors at cost. It is strongly suggested that tax farmers be paid a regular wage and not allowed to take as much as they desire. Should the Crown's share be waived or reduced in a specific area in times of crisis, it is not to be collected.
-[X] Raising local taxes : Local Lords can still raise extra taxes. However, they are not to tax goods listed by the Crown as fundamentally essential (bread, water, etc - first list to be listed soon). Should the list change in the future, all new changes must be announced a year before they come into effect. However, the Crown may rule such extra taxes unlawful, and new taxes may be appealed by anyone who pays them.
-[X] Paying taxes : Taxes may be paid in kind, or in service for those who cannot pay in kind. Tax collectors can offer to collect taxes in service at their discretion, but refusing and paying in kind or coin remains an option. However, Lords must pay the Crown's share in coin. Transporting the Crown's share can be done by the Lord, or the Lord may ask the Crown to collect it in times or war or crisis in which its safety would not be guaranteed on the roads.
-[X] Income Tax:
--[X] An Income Tax will be applied to all legal entities (private citizens, guilds, merchant consortiums, companies, etc) operating within the Imperium which are not wholly owned and operated by the state, with annual rates determined by the income generated by each entity. Income-based tax brackets and the rates associated with them are subject to periodic adjustment in response to various economic factors, though such adjustments must be announced at least one year in advance of implementation.
---[X] Income Brackets & Annual Tax Rates
----[X] Income below Imperial Median = 0%
----[X] Imperial Median to + 50% Median = 10%
----[X] +51% to +100% Median = 20%
----[X] +101% Median to +200% Median = 25%
----[X] +201% Median to +1,000% Median = 30%
----[X] +1,001% Median to +10,000% Median = 35%
----[X] +10,001% Median to +100,000% Median = 40%
----[X] +100,001% Median to +1,000,000% Median = 45%
----[X] In excess of +1,000,000% = 50%
-[X] Property Tax:
--[X] A 1% Property Tax will be levied against the holdings of all legal entities (private citizens, guilds, merchant consortiums, companies, etc) operating within the Imperium which are not wholly owned and operated by the state if the total assessed value of their properties exceeds 1,000 IM.
--[X] This tax information is publicly available. All cadastral maps and land value estimates are to be shared with the Crown and must be publicly available to citizens.
-[X] Inheritance and Reincarnation Taxes:
--[X] Upon Reincarnation not sanctioned by the Imperium*, 80% of the value of one's estate is to be distributed to one's heirs after any outstanding debts have been settled.
---[X] In instances where the Reincarnated subject and his or her heirs are unable to agree upon the division of non-monetary assets, an impartial mediator will by appointed by the Imperium to oversee arbitration between the involved parties. Mediators will have binding authority to divide non-monetary assets should arbitration fail.
---[X] The assets a Reincarnated subject retains or accumulates after Reincarnation are not subject to further division among previous heirs, though any heirs produced following the latest Reincarnation do so benefit.
--[X] Upon Reincarnation not sanctioned by the Imperium*, 20% of the value of one's estate is to be paid as a tax to the Imperium should the Reincarnated subject have no living heirs.
---[X] Upon subsequent instances of Reincarnation without an heir, the rate of taxation will increase in 20% increments, to a maximum tax rate per Reincarnation of 80% of total assets.
--[X] *State-sanctioned Reincarnation includes any instance of an individual being Reincarnated after falling in service to the Imperium as part of their assigned duties.
-[X] Clarification of Inheritance:
--[X] An individual's children, both those legitimately born within the bounds of a marriage contract and those illegitimately born outside of such a contract, but who were later officially recognized, are considered their legal heirs. This ruling extends to any children one may have legally adopted into their family, but who do not share significant ties of blood relation.
---[X] Additionally, an individual has full control over the disbursement of their worldly assets to legal heirs, including the designation of a primary heir to receive inheritable titles of nobility.
 
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Drop the Imperial Median tax rate to 10-15% 20 is a bit much for barely middle class that would be the bare median. You run into the problem of losing a fifth of your income for earning a silver more and problems like that. And maybe a ceremonial 1% for those below the median. Median isnt a sudden dip to poverty line afterall.

Just for purposes of participation. Maybe 1, 10, 15 ,25, 35, etc works better.
 
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Abhishek M said:
Drop the Imperial Median tax rate to 10-15% 20 is a bit much for barely middle class that would be the bare median. You run into the problem of losing a fifth of your income for earning a silver more and problems like that. And maybe a ceremonial 1% for those below the median. Median isnt a sudden dip to poverty line afterall.

Just for purposes of participation. Maybe 1, 10, 15 ,25, 35, etc works better.
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Adjusted the rates a bit.
Goldfish said:
---[X] Income Brackets & Annual Tax Rates
----[X] Income below Imperial Median = 0%
----[X] Imperial Median to + 50% Median = 10%
----[X] +51% to +100% Median = 20%
----[X] +101% Median to +200% Median = 25%
----[X] +201% Median to +1,000% Median = 30%
----[X] +1,001% Median to +10,000% Median = 35%
----[X] +10,001% Median to +100,000% Median = 40%
----[X] +100,001% Median to +1,000,000% Median = 45%
----[X] In excess of +1,000,000% = 50%
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