Muacha
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Posted - 2003.07.09 13:38:00 -
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Taxing only profits is IMHO the ideal scenario. However, this gets complicated because the cost/purchase and sale do not always happen in sequence. i.e. the individual manufacturer that mines for the minerals needed, while making small batches, that only sells once he manufactures a certain ammount (say 20,000 ammo), however also hunts NPC pirates while the batches are cooking.
Or what about the trade merchant that buys in bulk at a preferred price, only to hold those items a couple of days for the sales markets to turn around?? While he's waiting, he manufactures and sells other items, makes different trade runs, does a little hunting or possibly runs some agent missions.
What about the trade runner that takes a loan from the corp to get started for agreeing to pay interest back to the corp. Surly the interest should be deductible when calculating profit for tax purposes, right?
My point is not to discuss all the different possible combinations of game play, it's just to highlight that tracking the cost vs. sale of each item can be extrememly complex.
I used to be in favor of a simple tax on every positive entry into a persons wallet (including money transfers between players and withdrawls from the corporate wallet). However, now I'm more inclined to keep the money transfers out of the tax because it just seems to make more sense.
My corp taxes on profits for trade goods and/or manufactured good (interest on the loan is deductible). However, we also tax the gross receipts for mineral sales, agent rewards, pirate bounties, ets. Basically, anything that does not have an actual cost will get the blanket tax. The problem with this system, is that it's based on the honor system and I'm not sure all my corp mates understand it.
While implementing the tax feature, please also implement the ability for the corporations to sell manufactured items directly on the open markets. As it is now, it is very difficult for corps to track these sales cuz the individuals must sell the items. This becomes an issue when the corp member gets taxed on the sale of the items, the deposits the remainder in the corp wallet. For larger, prenegotiated sales contracts, this will add another layer of complexity to keeping track of it all. If corps could sell AND trade items directly, it would help a lot.
My advise it to keep it simple. A tax on all positive deposits into a persons wallet....not including money transfers (both between players and corp wallets). Make the tax automatic and immediate...not subject to a players approval. When they earn money, before it's added to their wallet, the corp tax is deducted.
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