Taxday discussion

[Kessu]

Taxday is a level 5 command that taxes every bank account in the server by a % decided by a manager+.

The command used to be a necessary evil to keep the economy in some sort of control, but since the introduction of the automatic tax % upon depositing or collecting income I personally feel the command has been rendered useless and is only punishing players, especially those who have lower profits and do not wish to be grinding.

There's been a lot of discussion regarding this command lately and we would like to get the opinions of the player base.

So, go ahead - discuss.

Bring up your points in a constructive manner.

[KenAdams]

Greetings!
Thanks a lot for bringing this topic up.
I appreciate that the automatic tax system on cash deposits is introduced. Hence, in my opinion, the taxday is unnecessary. Well, some of us generally prefer Roleplay rather than grinding. And the taxday acts as a blow towards the economy and the enthusiasm most of us have, hence decreasing the enthusiasm and making people concentrate more on grind rather than a peaceful Roleplay.
In short, Roleplay is what we all aim at, right? So I guess it's better that the taxday system is removed. Thank you again for bringing up this topic. 

[Kowalski.]

I don't mind having a taxday as long as it's regulated. Having a tax day maybe once every two months at most is fine for me.

[Nylez]

I can give a lecture of over 1000 words as to why I think the command is unnecessary, but I won't. I've spent too long trying to convince others to see my point of view and all I get is shit thrown in my face so. Glad to see this topic being made, on point

OT:

The command used to be a necessary evil to keep the economy in some sort of control, but since the introduction of the automatic tax % upon depositing or collecting income I personally feel the command has been rendered useless and is only punishing players, especially those who have lower profits and do not wish to be grinding.

So what you're saying here it's currently an unnecessary evil, because what does it do? Does it take money from all players and invest it in something like a bonus pot for players who do their specific jobs right? Does it create a state fund to organize events? Nah people. It's just a huge middle-finger in the faces of people who spent day in, day out, working hard or just staying in-game and grinding because they're the only player online.

There's been a lot of discussion regarding this command lately and we would like to get the opinions of the player base.

I'm sure there won't be a lot of discussions about this anymore.

In short: If you can make the command have a purpose rather than just take money away because "certain people have too much" I'm all for it. But make sure it's server controlled, not humanly controlled. And if you do make it humanly controlled, make it be by someone who cares about the people rather than using his personal point of view alone when making the decision.

[Kessu]

So what you're saying here it's currently an unnecessary evil, because what does it do? Does it take money from all players and invest it in something like a bonus pot for players who do their specific jobs right? Does it create a state fund to organize events? Nah people. It's just a huge middle-finger in the faces of people who spent day in, day out, working hard or just staying in-game and grinding because they're the only player online.

That's pretty much exactly what I said.

[Shinyeyes]

This is just from my perspective. Correct me if I get anything wrong.

Isn't the main purpose of the tax when depositing illegal money in a bank supposed to be an incentive for players to use their props to store money? From what I understood, there's also a limit to how much money you can legally store in a prop and as such storing too much can put you at risk of being raided. Is the 30% extra cash not enticing enough to risk a raid? Is taxday also necessary to balance out the comfort of having cash in the bank?

Also doesn't this command only affect people with large amounts of cash in their banks?
From what I saw, whenever the command is used we also get a check from the government that ranges from $500 to $1000. 
Assuming one taxday is 2% of current bank money, you could lose almost nothing if you had between 25k-50k stored, or even gain money from it if you have less than 25k.


But if you had a larger sum stored, around $1mil for instance, you would lose $20k the first time it is used, then $19,600, then $19,208 and so on. As such, with a mere 7 uses of this command with a 2% rate, the person who stored $1mil will have lost exactly $131,874 (assuming that the command rounds it to the closest integer). This wouldn't be a big deal if the command is used like once a month. And of course, the taxed percentage can be lower. But the idea that you can lose over $60k in a single month just because you did not want to risk being raided and a leader decided to use the command with a 1% rate 7 times (which is simply something I believe fuzzie claimed at one point, I may be wrong) feels so wrong.

60k, as an example, is the equivalent of:

-around 10h of pizza job (assuming that the person doing it takes breaks so that the deliveries respawn and that they keep actively delivering during the times when they are not waiting)
-smuggling 13-14 Infernus (which would be extremy lucky to get in a row and also assumes that there is no one online or that you can sneak it with cops online)

This does not even take into account the fact that, in order to have $1mil in the bank you would have to deposit $1,428,572, out of which $428,572 is paid as tax when depositing. That is why I must ask again: is the usage of the taxday command necessary?

The main risk of storing a large sum of cash in a prop is that it may all be lost by one mistake.
The main risk of storing a large sum of cash in the bank is that a large sum of it it may or not be lost at random through a command.
Unless someone can state an actual reason for the command to be used I fail to see its purpose and I believe it should not be used or be removed altogether.

[Huntsman]

I don't see what would be the difference if the command was removed. I mean it's up to the admin whether he wants to be an ass and tax people, or not.

Speaking of taxes themselves, however, I think they should be made lower to those with lower incomes. The taxes atm create this circle where taxing creates it very hard for those who are new
(or just had a position where money wasn't that important like VCPD before) to make money, meaning the rich aren't getting any poorer, and the poor are hardly getting any richer. Progressive taxes perhaps?

[Kessu]

Legal jobs are not taxed, only cash and businesses are taxed.

If a new player decides to be a criminal right off the bat it is a challenge they will need to endure.

This discussion is purely for /taxday command and nothing else, so let's keep it on topic.

[Nylez]

I'm sure there won't be a lot of discussions about this anymore.

In short: If you can make the command have a purpose rather than just take money away because "certain people have too much" I'm all for it. But make sure it's server controlled, not humanly controlled. And if you do make it humanly controlled, make it be by someone who cares about the people rather than using his personal point of view alone when making the decision.

Let's take it from this point then. Anyone got any ideas how to make the command useful rather than just the metaphorical middle finger to the face? I, personally, want to play even less because of this command and the whole story that has come behind it all. I'm sure it was intended to make people aware that this command exists and will be used to balance the economy.

Does it take money from all players and invest it in something like a bonus pot for players who do their specific jobs right? Does it create a state fund to organize events?

These are suggestions I made, which seemed to have been thrown aside very swiftly. Make tax have a purpose that can be shown to all players so players can't complain about it happening since it doesn't feel personal. Create an achievement pool for every job which specific rewards connecting to those. From *Killing a Suspect as a VCPD Officer* to *Deliver 15 pizzas in a row* with their own specific rewards. That way you take a specific amount depending on how much people grind and have deposited in their bank account and then spread it around legal jobs by giving rewards for these accomplishments.

Make it a time based command, not a command that can be used manually.
Make changes to the purpose or make the command disappear.

[Klaus]

I, personally, want to play even less because of this command and the whole story that has come behind it all

The command is no longer being used as per management's agreement. In the end it caused too much distress to certain players.

Does it create a state fund to organize events?

No, but it should. It was discussed here: https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=122763.0

Create an achievement pool for every job which specific rewards connecting to those. From *Killing a Suspect as a VCPD Officer* to *Deliver 15 pizzas in a row* with their own specific rewards. That way you take a specific amount depending on how much people grind and have deposited in their bank account and then spread it around legal jobs by giving rewards for these accomplishments.

This was discussed before here https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=117475.0 and here https://www.argonathrpg.eu/index.php?topic=120288.0

Again, it's something I think we should defiantly implement going forwards.