Tax income

[Hullu Hevonen]

Btw, how is tax income calculated? A while back when I didn't have any facilities in SR2033 (except for Cities and other complexes), the world became incredebly rich, eventhough there was 0 production of everything that the population couldn't produce, like food. Youd think there would be increased dying and emmigration(immigration somewhere else) since there ain't. Youd also think the price on the rare commodeties out there would be so high that it would cripple either the treasury or population of India etc. Think about it, if there is no food, then the population starves, otherwise you buy as much as you can in highly inflated prices. Also the unemployment should be high. I think this "automatic" money gaining is the problem I'm having with my mod and I can't find any significant fixes for it.

[Kristijonas]

Funny thing: SR series have not only seen little improvement since SR2010, they've seen reduction in detail. There are so many things that are not logical in any sense and that should have been fixed a long time ago and that WILL NOT be fixed because no one cares. More examples: taxes and social expenditures effects are absurd and not realistic and there is actually no such hidden modifiers as money circulating in the country or prices/taxes affecting things in wider/butterfly effect, the AI economy is rigged to look realistic but after some time passes it becomes apparent that it is out of control and that it is completely linear/the AI is totally unable to face challenges, loyalty system is silly because territories have multiple loyalties in real life, also it affects little to nothing or is hardcoded to always affect the same no matter what social policy is taken, culture and religion have no effects, does immigration/emigration actually makes sense? Because I think people just appear/vanish out of nowhere - they do not actually migrate to other countries (and there are a lot of artificial things like that, that make it look like there's actually movement of things (money, people, goods) going on, but they actually just appear/disappear unrealistically, many important techs have no effects, diplomacy is too stubborn - it is impossible to befriend unfriendly countries no matter how many billions you want to invest in the friendship - in real life it is much easier; conquered territories look like someone cheese-grated the map: countries randomly occupy hexes, never actually making deals about territory after war; there are no diplomatical ways to do many things. I wish someone more responsible would buy SR series from the current developer.

By the way, I am not even flaming, this is just my real, honest opinion. Too many issues are never being addressed or are at the core of the game itself (although one would think core things would also be changed between different SR games).

[dax1]

there are private facilities...U can see only the govenment's facilities!

[georgios]

I think this "automatic" money gaining is the problem I'm having with my mod and I can't find any significant fixes for it.

I'm facing the same problem. Who creates in-game money?

[georgios]

I wish someone more responsible would buy SR series from the current developer..

Ha ha! I'm interested to buy it!

[georgios]

there are private facilities...U can see only the govenment's facilities!

But these government facilities cover all existing production. What remains for private sector?

Of course there is private sector but it is part of the governent sector.

I believe that private sector is working at government facilities and is payed the production and maintenance costs along with the social services costs. This private sector is a mixture of employees, smaller or larger companies, or freelancers.

In any case the can't have more money than state gives to them.

I made a hypothesis, that private sector (citizens) are clients of the world bank, receiving markups from world trade and loan interests.. But they are not so much money..

It seems like world bank creates everyday new money, giving it directly to people..

An official explanation is urgently needed!

[Hullu Hevonen]

Well I think changing developers is a bit harsh, but I do think that this is an real issue, as an modder I have struggled with this for years. Spent hundreds of hours trying to "fix" the economies of my mods with never truly reaching my goals to fix the economy. It seems there are 'hidden'/hard coded modifiers that moves money from A to B illogically, but that is also the problem it's easy for us to demand improvement. Making code that actually works takes resources and time, while modifiers can often serve as short cuts. That said, I think this is an real issue that deserves these resources and attention. Creating illogical value out of thin air basically isn't working, the world economy is too good, and it cannot be worsened, because then you collide into the problem with the AI handling on the economy, which is another topic.

[georgios]

It would be wellcome if someone explained how these modifiers work.

[Hullu Hevonen]

Yeah, thats true, also if we could somehow modify these modifiers to suit our mods. One solution to the problem could be to add an "productivity" modifier (suspect there might already be something similar implemented), give social spending more 'costs' and game effects. So that you are required to say have a certain minimum in social spending or otherwise face risks of revolts.

This could be tied to gdp, countries with lower gdp would require lower social spending and vice versa. Thus the world regions have to spend money on social spending. Tax would be calculated based on the gdp (which, I assume is already somehow implemented), but the thing is, when you come to economic theories, there are different GDP standard, the 2 main ones are PPP and Nominal. This meaning in lamest terms, PPP is how much money you have to spend on domestic products, while nominal is on international products. An example, you have China and USA, the Chinese might spend 2$/kilos of apples , while an American might spend say 20$, but if these Chinese and Americans want to buy an BMW (say it costs 20000$) it will cost both of them the same. Now when taking income into consideration, the Chinese might earn 2000$/year while an American 20000$/year, so their personal nominal gdps would be 2000 and 20000 respectivaly, but when you calculate the PPP you take into consideration living standard etc, meaning that a Chinese can eat 1000kg of apples a year and and american can east 2000 kg meaning that the Chinese is actually just half as poor as an american in PPP terms instead of 1/10 in Nominal terms. This is just an example to explain the difference and to relate this back to the tax income of the SR games, I think SR1936 should differentiate between domestic and international, since you can earn enough to buy all the domestic products you need, but you may be lacking in say industrial goods because the price for you to import is simply too high, thus bottle-necking and causing other harm to your economy. This is also why many Chinese today can afford to buy as many gadgets as westerners but still don't suffer from hunger even though being relatively poor in comparison. This does then also affect the tax income of a country, because "poor" countries don't get that much revenue from exporting so that they can import more.

EDIT: To implement this would be more complicated to simply have a few modifiers 'simulate' these effects, but as we have seen, these modifiers dosen't live up to the standard, so to say

[georgios]

the Chinese might spend 2$/kilos of apples , while an American might spend say 20$, but if these Chinese and Americans want to buy an BMW (say it costs 20000$) it will cost both of them the same.

No, the American will buy chinese apples at 2$/kg.

I think that a single value of GDP is enough.

As for social spending I propose to be completely removed from rthe game and replaced with one or more traded commodities. They can be all together "services" or separate commodities health, education.. They will have a production, a domestic and a global price, like alla other commodities. Service demand will be correllated with GDP. The surplus will be exported to region that don't have enough infrastructure. The export might be in terms of workforce visiting the buyer, or clients visiting the seller (tourism).

I have already replaced cons goods with these services and they are produced at hotels and business sectors. And for realism reasons this new commodity has the biggest share in global economy.

Next question about taxes is: when we say 40% tax we mean that we receive 40% of people income? So 40% of their current GDP/c? Or 40% of money governement spent in everything except from imports? (because all expenditure except imports goes to civilians).

[Hullu Hevonen]

the Chinese might spend 2$/kilos of apples , while an American might spend say 20$, but if these Chinese and Americans want to buy an BMW (say it costs 20000$) it will cost both of them the same.

No, the American will buy chinese apples at 2$/kg.

I think that a single value of GDP is enough.

As for social spending I propose to be completely removed from rthe game and replaced with one or more traded commodities. They can be all together "services" or separate commodities health, education.. They will have a production, a domestic and a global price, like alla other commodities. Service demand will be correllated with GDP. The surplus will be exported to region that don't have enough infrastructure. The export might be in terms of workforce visiting the buyer, or clients visiting the seller (tourism).

I have already replaced cons goods with these services and they are produced at hotels and business sectors. And for realism reasons this new commodity has the biggest share in global economy.

Next question about taxes is: when we say 40% tax we mean that we receive 40% of people income? So 40% of their current GDP/c? Or 40% of money governement spent in everything except from imports? (because all expenditure except imports goes to civilians).

Nope, not when you add up transportation cost etc Chinese apples will cost ~15-25$ for americans . Yes I agree, the GDP proposal was to demonstrate just that, the need for domestic and global prices, currently this is not in-game. In RL, this is measured by different GDP standards. As for services, I like them as they are, they just need to be made more realistically and have bigger ramifications. Services should be a new commodity, to relate it to SR1936, which will be the priority to the devs, services where basically non-existant in 1936 by todays standards. Services started getting more and more important after WWII.

In game terms I do not know exactly how the tax system is calculated, which might be part of the problem that where discussing. In RL, GDP or GDP/c ain't every persons average yearly income (which people often think) and depending on which GDP standard you look at it measures different things. It measures each persons productivity in a society, with different emphasizes depending on different GDP standards. I can go deeper into this topic, but I think then we might start going more off topic from tax incom and income to focus on GDP.

[georgios]

Nope, not when you add up transportation cost etc Chinese apples will cost ~15-25$ for americans

No, we have assumed that there are not transportation costs, only the production costs, driven by GDP/c

In game terms I do not know exactly how the tax system is calculated, which might be part of the problem that where discussing.

Not part, this is the core of the problem! This question goes to George who created the game engine.

In RL, GDP or GDP/c ain't every persons average yearly income (which people often think) and depending on which GDP standard you look at it measures different things. It measures each persons productivity in a society, with different emphasizes depending on different GDP standards.

We assume that GDP is equally distributed to the population.

I can go deeper into this topic, but I think then we might start going more off topic from tax incom and income to focus on GDP.

There is a recent thread about GDP.

http://www.bgforums.com/forums/viewtopi ... 69&t=22031

Please go there and post as much as possible.

[bitterwinterz]

This is the reason that I haven't bought any title since SR2020. Great game idea and when you start to play its fresh and new.. but after the awhile you begin to see the problems. The AI cannot cope with running the game beyond the initial setup.

U can script the AI to provide an challenging experience... Ruges mod for SR2020 comes to mind. I think BG has tried to do the same in Cold War and 1936. The new graphics are great but with all the problems of the AI... my dollars go elsewhere

[georgios]

U can script the AI to provide an challenging experience... Ruges mod for SR2020 comes to mind. I think BG has tried to do the same in Cold War and 1936.

what do you mean? Are parametres such taxation editable?

[Hullu Hevonen]

No, we have assumed that there are not transportation costs, only the production costs, driven by GDP/c

Well ir it is like that, even if your not paining the transportation, someone else does. In game you have a price to build and an international market price, optimal for international trade, but what about domestic trade?

We assume that GDP is equally distributed to the population.

Wealth distribution plays an huge part in tax income, if you have say a fair progressive taxation policy (which is possible in this game), then the rich depending on their wealth and numbers will contribute enormously to the government economy trough taxes. Say you had 10 people in your country, scenario A all has equal income with an income tax of 30%, B 3 poor (10%, 10 income), 6 middle (30%, 100 income) and 1 rich (50%, 370 income). Your GDP is 1000 (1000/10=100 per capita), thus you would get 300 tax income in Scenario A, but in Scenario B a tax income of 368 (3+180+185). So demographics, wealth distribution etc plays an role in the economy and should play in SR.