Restoration Tax

With the End of Days, came (what we hope is) the end of the Garlean invasion, which has left devastation throughout the lands.

Since the Warrior of Light is in support of reforming Garlemald, I feel they should put their money where their mouth is, and contribute a steady amount of gil towards the large scale restoration efforts that are surely going on throughout our little part of the world.

To this end, I suggest a wealth tax of 3% gil per month, and 5% of land value per month.
This would naturally apply to all gil, be it in pocket, on retainer, or in their mailbox.

With such contributions, I hope we may all live to see a better world, and a brighter tomorrow.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are many benefits to a regular wealth tax.
Such as: reducing inflation, encouraging spending, and the discouraging of excessive housing ownership.

The purpose of a fixed percent wealth tax over an income tax, is that hits those who can afford it the most.
Meanwhile those who manage to save very little, get taxed very little.

While I imagine this would be deeply unpopular; in addition to the above benefits it would also be rather amusing, so I do hope it will be considered.

Counterpoint similar to IRL scenarios - while it hits those who have the most gil the most in value, they also have the most capital to make more gil. Furthermore, the people at the top-end with gil making tend to have gil making methods that would make a 3% slash in gil absolutely negligible based on how much they already have stashed and can make.

The only saving grace is that who have little or simply have it in items have less to lose, but generally also have a less easy time to make gil due to lack of capital and possibly lacking the option to make it (I am strictly speaking of submarines and FC workshop).

As long as there is a semi-available gil printer with insane printing capacity out there, the tax will do virtually nothing but be a tax on simply having gil - so an annoyance at best.

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raenra

There are many benefits to a regular wealth tax.
Such as: reducing inflation, encouraging spending, and the discouraging of excessive housing ownership.

The purpose of a fixed percent wealth tax over an income tax, is that hits those who can afford it the most.
Meanwhile those who manage to save very little, get taxed very little.

While I imagine this would be deeply unpopular; in addition to the above benefits it would also be rather amusing, so I do hope it will be considered.

---

It wouldn't really do any of those things at any scale, other than piss a bunch of people off

Player A has 800 bajillion gil, and sees it as a high score that keeps going up. That gil is essentially out of the economy now. Encouraging them to spend it on expensive rare stuff that won't get taxed puts it back into the economy, with inflationary effect

Player B has 10 million gil and is trying to get a house. Charging them 300k per month, then another 200k per month if they manage to get a small house just drives them out of the game

Player C sells a bunch of stuff on the market board. Every sale causes 5-10% of the list price to vanish. Your idea disincentivizes selling, lowering the supply on the market, causing prices to go up

What benefit is there? "Lore says something good is done with your gil after it goes poof"

Quote:

---

Originally Posted by Raenra

With the End of Days, came (what we hope is) the end of the Garlean invasion, which has left devastation throughout the lands.

Since the Warrior of Light is in support of reforming Garlemald, I feel they should put their money where their mouth is, and contribute a steady amount of gil towards the large scale restoration efforts that are surely going on throughout our little part of the world.

To this end, I suggest a wealth tax of 3% gil per month, and 5% of land value per month.
This would naturally apply to all gil, be it in pocket, on retainer, or in their mailbox.

With such contributions, I hope we may all live to see a better world, and a brighter tomorrow.

---------------------------------------------------------------------------------

There are many benefits to a regular wealth tax.
Such as: reducing inflation, encouraging spending, and the discouraging of excessive housing ownership.

The purpose of a fixed percent wealth tax over an income tax, is that hits those who can afford it the most.
Meanwhile those who manage to save very little, get taxed very little.

While I imagine this would be deeply unpopular; in addition to the above benefits it would also be rather amusing, so I do hope it will be considered.

---

How would this wealth tax be charged/collected/administered?

Problem #1: not every player has completed the 6.0 MSQ. Not every WoL is aware of a need for restoration, let alone being in support of it. We don't really know the WoL's true feelings beyond they've made some friends there that they care about. Perhaps the WoL would rather see their gil going to all of Ishgard or Ala Mhigo (nations that are actual allies) for their restoration and not Garlemald (that we technically only have a truce with).

Problem #2: there are ways to hide wealth within the game by converting it to "physical" property other than housing. Those with real life wealth and willing to purchase a full set of 10 retainers are at a much greater advantage for doing this than the average lower income player who only has the default two retainers.

Problem #3: inactive accounts. Are they also charged? It would not be fair to charge players that are inactive but at the same time it becomes a loophole to be exploited by those wishing to avoid the tax if there is no tax to be paid by inactive accounts.

Problem #4: any such tax is going to impact less wealthy characters struggling to earn enough gil to buy something harder economically than it will impact wealthy characters as others above me also pointed out. There's a reason why many tax systems exclude a base amount of income from being taxable.

Problem #5: There is no benefit to anyone regardless of what you have going on in your head. Such a tax would only be an annoyance for all players. SE could simply reduce gil rewards by 3% and increase plot prices by 5% to get mostly the same effect (the difference being the plot cost would only be taxed once).