Total Purses in the SIM

[Tim Matthews]

Please check your math. 1% of 2 million is 20k.

George, remember that the first million is tax-free under my proposal. Since only $1,000,000 is taxed, 1% of $1,000,000 equals 10k.

[Tim Matthews]

But I’m liking the ideas being throw around this thread. Everyone seems to be adding constructive arguments and suggestions...for the most part. It’s a discussion after all, nothing here is being implemented yet.

This is important for many to remember

[George Knatz]

Please check your math. 1% of 2 million is 20k.

George, remember that the first million is tax-free under my proposal. Since only $1,000,000 is taxed, 1% of $1,000,000 equals 10k.

Got it thanks

[Ronnie Dee]

Works for me

Of course, this would work for you. Arguably, your Sim assets are worth more than April Eddy's yet you would pay considerably less in wealth taxes than April under the "Tim Tax Plan".

April Eddy's Stable
vs
Rebecca Rose Hepburn's Stable

How much more valuable are Rebecca Rose Hepburn's horses than April Eddy's horses? $100 million? $200 million?

This is an interesting point. I actually re-worded my original post since it is not technically a "wealth" tax, since it does not tax all assets; it only taxes liquid SIM cash. (A tax on horses based on quality would obviously be unworkable.)

But the issue at hand, of course, is not horse inequality or barn inequality. These inequalities cannot be solved and should not be solved. The issue at hand is the size of the SIM economy, and to a lesser extent the concentration of SIM dollars. My proposed tax addresses both. Are you arguing that such a tax would be unfair to someone like April?

Yes, the "Tim Tax Plan" would be very unfair to April and others like her who measure their success by the size of their bankrolls. More importantly, this plan would be very unfair to Em. Of course, many vigilant Simsters would "help" Em out by pointing out any financial transactions that could be related to tax evasion.

I much prefer "Pete's Emancipation Proclamation". Various Sim characters are paid for their efforts (e.g., vet) while jockeys are slaves to their owners. Let us assume Pete succeeds in his efforts to emancipate these slaves. Further, these jockeys then readily agree that they will be paid on a commission only basis (e.g., they would earn 10% of any purse money won by their mounts). Em is overjoyed and as part of the emancipation celebration, she raises the amount of "Invented Money" to a record high (e.g, $1.4 billion).

[Glenn Escobar]

Ronnie pointed out one of the reasons why I don’t think anyone would actually have fun in a taxable assets SIM world.

Because as soon as there are taxes, in whatever way shape or form they come to pass, the entire SIM will become an amateur detective agency, on the lookout for small or large examples of tax evasion.

And rest assured, tax evasion would happen. Along with it would come the fraudulent sheltering or misrepresentation of assets.

But how could you prove it was happening? And even if you could, do you really want to invest your own SIM time in tracking down the cash records of other people’s accounts? Now we become SIM owners, trainers, breeders.....and auditors? Fun.

— Private stats & bankrolls would be gone.
— Private auctions now become tax liabilities at certain times of the year.
— Honestly, the limitations needed to regulate such a system are onerous at best, and impossible to implement at worst.
— if I was SIM management, the last thing I would want to do is act as a tax-collection agency for the billions of fake dollars floating around in a fun, SIMulation game.

The whole thing would make our TBS horse pin-hooking issues of SIM years past look like a game of Candy Land between preschoolers in terms of its relative innocence.

Think twice about the long-term effects of SIM taxation.

[Dave Trainer]

If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about. It wouldn't spoil my enjoyment at all.

[Glenn Escobar]

If you're not doing anything wrong you have nothing to worry about. It wouldn't spoil my enjoyment at all.

It would take your Private Stats down, since bankrolls would have to be public. IDK if that’s a biggie or not for you, maybe it’s not.

My bottom line preference is to let things run as they are —— and if there must be a change, then consider the merits of the Pete + Ronnie Emancipation of the Jockeys proposal. Because that’s an assessment collected on the spot and it’s only based on track performance.

[Dave Trainer]

It wouldn't bother me at all but bankrolls wouldn't need to be public. Why would they? The game knows how much money a player has and it would deduct whatever amount based on that.

Tim's idea is very simple and its not a tax on assets, purely a tax on the bank balance.

[Glenn Escobar]

It wouldn't bother me at all but bankrolls wouldn't need to be public. Why would they? The game knows how much money a player has and it would deduct whatever amount based on that.

Tim's idea is very simple and its not a tax on assets, purely a tax on the bank balance.

True, and honestly I’ll give you the fact that the bankrolls could likely stay private.

The one and only complication then is that players could - and maybe they wouldn’t, but let’s just pretend - get creative about allocating their bank balances at tax time.

Tim’s plan isn’t complicated, I’ll give you that as well. But, the even simpler solution is to not tax at all. Saves everyone multiple levels of hassle.

And if we have a tax at some point, it’s fine. I’m just saying that it’s got the potential to cause more problems than it provides benefits.

[Glenn Escobar]

One massive flaw in the tax plan is that it would, from what I’m reading, be a tax on a given day of the players bank balance on that day.

But think for a moment about how real taxes work. Income taxes, I mean. You earn 200 units of money in a tax year wherever you live. Your state or country taxes those 200 units at X percent.

It doesn’t matter if you spent them or not. Doesn’t matter how many of the units are in your hands at the end of the fiscal year.

Folks, this tax structure where you spend April Eddy’s money for her is more like a recurrent estate tax than a straight income or sales tax. And that would be problematic because high income earners who simply re-invest their cash all the time in better horses (you should play this way), would just pay their marginal bank balance tax on tax day and move along. Meanwhile, high net worth players would be assessed every season simply for holding cash.

See...... estate planning or long term asset holding is cool too, and you’re saying it’s fine to tax April Eddy 5.7 Million on her net cash worth, just because she has it, without even considering what she makes in a season. Wealthy people, in general, accumulated their wealth by solid pro-active resource management — and this plan basically tells a player like April that she now owes the SIM money for being a solid manager of resources.

So if it’s bank balance tax on a certain day, why would I not just basically run my cash balance into the ground to pay fewer taxes, since horses are all I can spend my cash on anyhow?

[Laura Smith]

Glenn (and others) do have a valid point re: assets on "tax day."
The SIM tracks our earnings already, even neatly organized by type. What would be wrong with graduated taxation on income? Leave stuff like article writing out of it (tax free income would be a great way to encourage more writers...) but otherwise tax on yearly income, including stud fees as those tend to be the bread and butter of the richest stables.

Is it "fun?" Maybe not, but neither are random injuries and having your blue hens produce claimers, and we accept those things as part of the game. If inflation management is necessary for the success of the SIM, I'm all for it. Take my couple percent at the end of the year. I'd just blow it BSAing mares anyway

[Glenn Escobar]

Glenn (and others) do have a valid point re: assets on "tax day."
The SIM tracks our earnings already, even neatly organized by type. What would be wrong with graduated taxation on income? Leave stuff like article writing out of it (tax free income would be a great way to encourage more writers...) but otherwise tax on yearly income, including stud fees as those tend to be the bread and butter of the richest stables.

Is it "fun?" Maybe not, but neither are random injuries and having your blue hens produce claimers, and we accept those things as part of the game. If inflation management is necessary for the success of the SIM, I'm all for it. Take my couple percent at the end of the year. I'd just blow it BSAing mares anyway

Graduated taxation on income, especially on net income, is music to my ears.

I’ll even get behind the tax free income on freelancing, that’s actually a cool idea as well.

[Tammy Stawicki]

I guess what I was really trying to suggest is that game points should only be for simperior only and other ancillary things perhaps like jockey silks, head shots.. but everything else should be for game money.. and get rid of the exchange.. but the fact is those who do well enough will never have to pay another REAL dollar for anything, the exchange will do it all.. but if you get rid of the exchange, then everyone has to pay to play, In real money.. all the hypogrades, cats and goats, game point sires.. CHANGE IT TO GAME MONEY!!! Then game points would never affect the economy and all the crybabies with several millions wont have to cry about higher taxes.. But i suspect no one wants to do any of that and Im sure has been considered..You know this way its fair to everyone and we dont have to worry about dastardly socialism creeping into the game, and a game can be realistic without having to watch a mare give birth.. gee willikers

The issue with this is the game needs real money to keep running smoothly as the servers, domains, etc cost real money. So there needs to be a high demand for game points to generate that real money.

[Tammy Stawicki]

Glenn (and others) do have a valid point re: assets on "tax day."
The SIM tracks our earnings already, even neatly organized by type. What would be wrong with graduated taxation on income? Leave stuff like article writing out of it (tax free income would be a great way to encourage more writers...) but otherwise tax on yearly income, including stud fees as those tend to be the bread and butter of the richest stables.

Is it "fun?" Maybe not, but neither are random injuries and having your blue hens produce claimers, and we accept those things as part of the game. If inflation management is necessary for the success of the SIM, I'm all for it. Take my couple percent at the end of the year. I'd just blow it BSAing mares anyway

Graduated taxation on income, especially on net income, is music to my ears.

I’ll even get behind the tax free income on freelancing, that’s actually a cool idea as well.

So I personally was proposing taxing wealth rather than income as I saw that being less painful. Which was also my arguement of the wealth tax over increased day rates or jockey fees. For those players just breaking even if all of a sudden a percent of their earnings are being taken away that is going to very frustrating. Whereas being a person with a larger bank roll I just feel like I have more money than I know what to do with and I wouldn't miss some small percentage being taken away. And I still have the strong stable that generated all that money in the first place so I'll make more. Now given Sim history I have no doubt that there would be those that would move their money on tax day to avoid paying but I am sure the majority would just go with it. And when we're talking about the true mega bankrolls where are you going to stash all that money anyway??

[Glenn Escobar]

Taxing wealth in a SIM Cash economy makes no sense. The taxes don’t go toward anything! At least in a TBS auction you get a horse or horses.

In a recurrent estate tax situation, you simply shred up fake currency for the purpose of having less of it.

It makes no sense.