Treasury
Each empire that has an empire capital city maintains a treasury. The treasury grows through taxation. The treasury shrinks by paying out rewards and by conducting research and development. An empire with no capital city does not accumulate a treasury.
The treasury is reported as a Government Account balance in the city report of each city that has a bank. Income and expenses of the treasury are shown on the city report.
Tax Types
Taxes are set by the emperor using the Governance (F10) window's Taxes tab. Three kinds of taxes can be set.
| Income tax | Collected on all income earned by citizens employed in empire cities. Each employed citizen earns 25¢ per city report period. Income tax is also collected on rewards paid out to avatars, at the time the debt is redeemed. |
|---|---|
| Sales tax | Collected periodically from every city based on the income spent by its population. Sales tax is also collected on commodity sell transactions, such as when an avatar sells items at the broker or when an avatar sells cargo to cities or other avatars. |
| Subsidy tax | Collected when cargo is sold from a subsidized spacecraft. Subsidized spacecraft are manufactured automatically at spacecraft factories. Privately-owned spacecraft are not subject to subsidy tax. |
Income Tax Penalty
The higher the Income Tax the less citizens wanna work. Each time a citizen is about to fetch commodities, run a manufacturing job, or do construction work. The citizen takes a moment to decide if working is worth its time.
This is calculated simply by the income tax percentage. If the income tax is 10%, there is a 10% chance a job won't be run. This means that if the income tax is 50%, all manufacturing jobs may only be run every second time, cutting all production in half.
Tribute
Taxes accumulate in the city coffers. Once per day at 0:00 UTC, half of each city's Government Account is transferred to either the sector's capital city or the empire capital city.
See the Capital City page for more information.
Empire Tribute
If the empire is a vassal or an ally of another empire, a portion of the empire capital city's government account may be send to the overload or ally.
See the Political Stance page for information on taxing other empires.
Pillaging
When a city is captured, the daily tax revenues that have accumulated and the private funds of the local citizens are split between the conquering avatars present in the city.
For more information, see the City Conquest page.
Government Debt
Rewards are established by the emperor. Many different rewards may be posted. These are listed on the Governance (F12) window's Rewards tab.
As members of an empire earn rewards, a debt is accrued to them by their empire. This debt is collected by visiting a bank that is owned by the empire. There the debt can be redeemed for cronodollars if the bank has the money in its government account. Income tax is collected off debt when it is redeemed, at the current income tax rate of the empire.