It's Tax Day!

(Year 233, Spring) This 1st day of Spring is Tax Day, and like every other Tax Day the extra taxes got plenty of attention. Mazaloom kingdom's system of extra tax and tax relief is nothing new. This comes on top of regular bills, which already include the general community taxes. Extra Taxes are meant to be a way for the dominating political parties to create financial consequences reflecting their political agenda.

Mrs. Silverbone supports the Extra Tax.

A typical example is the old pool-tax, which charged households with a swimming pool extra tax. It made sense to most because poor households were not affected, while those with a pool in their garden are normally able to pay a little extra without much trouble. On the upcoming Tax Day there is no Pool tax, but many other taxes and reliefs. Each extra tax is §1,000 while each relief gives a discount of §1,000. The extra taxes are not the same in all regions either, depending on what party won the previous election.

The good thing is that most households ends up with no extra tax at all.

The extra tax is part of each political party's political program, adjusted every 5 years prior to each election. It is set on district level and national level. The party winning the District Mayor will set 1 set of extra tax and tax relief for the district. If the party wants more children to be born, they can add a tax relief when there is a child in the household. If they want to gather elders in retirement homes, they can add extra tax for households with minimum one elder. A party focusing on education might give tax relief for graduations or top skills. And so on.

The party winning the President will then add their national set of extra tax and relief, affecting the entire kingdom.

The sum of this all is that each district will have 2 sets of tax/relief, but they might vary. Your address decides, but also the status of your household. If starting a family or planning to move, checking the extra taxes might save you several thousand Simoleons on every Tax Day. It's not easy to plan far ahead though, because the extra taxes might change after 5 years, following political trends. Taxes mostly affects luxurious extras that you either can't live without or easily can skip for a period. Besides, some extra taxes will affect features that you already get income from, such as running a populated chicken coop - the extra tax might just reduce your profit.

The extra tax and relief system is made easy to calculate. All taxes and reliefs are the same, §1,000. Some political parties wants the extra tax to affect every household, charging them §1,000 no matter how they live, while others might give a tax relief of §1,000 to all. The election actually makes a difference on district and regional levels, and your vote matters!

The extra tax is charged only once every 5 years, on 1st day of Spring 2 years before the next election.

- It is pretty easy to remember, says Minister of Trades & Taxes, Mrs Fanny Silverbone (71), better known as Mazaloom's Vice-President. She leads the LEFT party and has been a top politician for many years. - 1st Day of Spring is the first day of a new year. In any year ending with the digit 5 or 0 this day is Election Day, the year before Election Day it is Nomination Day, and the year before Nomination Day is Tax Day. Only the 2 years right after the election the 1st day of Spring has no particular function on national level, but serves a regional and local focus.

And how will this year's extra taxes hit the population?

- Well, it is obvious that the system hits the regions differently. While the exact taxes often vary within a region, because they were set on district (=world) level, we normally make statistics on the regions, only. It shows that a few regions pays a high extra tax, while some regions don't pay anything at all! Some think this is unfair, but the consensus is that this is exactly how the system is designed. There has to be differences when district politics sets half the rules, and unfortunately some regions will not be affected at all. This time there were a few districts where extra taxes were fewer in order to attract more settlers to those districts.

The big question that everyone wants to know: Who pays more extra tax?

- The total sum that is charged this time is §101,000. This is needed money for the national budgets, this time the new regional recreation centers will benefit from this, but also a social budget benefits from this extra tax income. Of the regions, Rossie (reg 2) has the highest extra tax. Their residents contributes with nearly 28% of the total extra taxes. Then follows Gloom (reg 8, formerly reg 12, 25%) and Windenburg (reg 1, 22%). In other words, those 3 out of 8 regions represent a total of 75%. In the other end we find two regions contributing with 0%. They are San Myshuno (reg 5, former part of reg 12) and Crafthole (reg 4).

It's worth noting that within a high tax rate region, like Rossie, there might still be some households not being charged any extra tax at all. And, this is the first Tax Day where high nobility houses are not excluded due to a privilege. Even the royal palace insisted on being treated like a regular household this year!

But why are Rossie, Gloom and Windenburg averagely charged more?

- There might be various reasons, but I think the many farm related extra taxes ticks in here. These three regions are our typical farming regions and some parties have extra taxes affecting running a populated chicken farm or having a cow or llama. There are reliefs when growing minimum 20 edible plants, but currently no tax relief regarding farm animals. I think this might be fine tuned for the next election, when the parties set their updated political programs. Each party can only change a few things between programs, but the total might have a bigger effect.

Being the Minister of Trades & Taxes you must love this extra tax?

- I see the system as very helpful for our community at large. It also makes things easier for the coming generation. But running a large farm myself, my own household in Brindleton Bay is actually having the highest extra tax of all households of the kingdom. Thankfully, we got a few reliefs, too, but I still pay more than most. We all need to contribute.

Before anyone asks; No - you can not have a situation where you get no extra tax but only tax reliefs. The system first sums up each household's extra taxes, and then the reliefs will be subtracted only if your extra tax is more than §0.

There is no tradition of making these lists of taxes public, anyone can look into the details by contacting your District Mayor. And - there is of course a chance that our gossips column author, Antoinette Morck will do just that in order to refer some info in her next edition.