1% Property Tax Experiment

[Propfam 2,315]

Hello everyone,

In SimCity 4, there is a thing called taxes. But as you might realized, these are property taxes for different zoning and wealth. In real life, property tax rate is different from region to region. In my country, the tax is 0.5% for taxable land and buildings. The game defaults of 8% is too high in my opinion. So, I want myself and you to experiment with 1% tax rate. The consequence is significant. Now, you can make a city with lots of demand available.

I hope this experiment to be successful. Thanks.

[CorinaMarie 29,934]

Here in the state of Indiana the property tax is 1% of the assessed property value for owner occupied homes. For tenant occupied it's 2%. And commercial and industrial are 3% iirc. (The latter part I'm not certain of cause at work we only appraise residential so that's the only classification I need to know.)

However, we also have income taxes by the county, the state, and the federal government and that adds up to 20% or more. Then each retail non-food item purchased gets a state tax added. Here in Indiana it's 7%. Then there's also a hidden (in the stated price) tax for each gallon of gasoline (petrol). And there are other commodities too which have hidden taxes built in.

So when it gets all said and done with those and other taxes, we pay close to 40% of our income to various government agencies. The little Sims with a mere 8 or 9 percent total tax live in a dream world.

[Propfam 2,315]

2 hours ago, CorinaMarie said:

Here in the state of Indiana the property tax is 1% of the assessed property value for owner occupied homes. For tenant occupied it's 2%. And commercial and industrial are 3% iirc. (The latter part I'm not certain of cause at work we only appraise residential so that's the only classification I need to know.)

However, we also have income taxes by the county, the state, and the federal government and that adds up to 20% or more. Then each retail non-food item purchased gets a state tax added. Here in Indiana it's 7%. Then there's also a hidden (in the stated price) tax for each gallon of gasoline (petrol). And there are other commodities too which have hidden taxes built in.

So when it gets all said and done with those and other taxes, we pay close to 40% of our income to various government agencies. The little Sims with a mere 8 or 9 percent total tax live in a dream world.

Maybe, we can't make a city solely on 1% property tax. We need to simulate other tax through for example, business deals and transportation fares/tolls. If it's possible to make city-owned company in the game, I want to do so. But, it didn't.

[Lucario Boricua 7,062]

I'm now curious, how do other players interpret the game's tax system, and how it varies by occupant group (R§, R§§, R§§§; CS§, CS§§, CS§§§, CO§§, CO§§§, I-Ag, I-D, I-M, I-HT)?

It could be interpreted as:

• Property tax (all groups? just residential?)
• Sales tax (commercial groups?)
• Operating licenses/patents (commercial, industrial?)
• Income tax (all groups? just residential?)
• Value-addition tax/VAT (commercial, industrial?)
• Capital gains tax / taxes on investment revenues (commercial. industrial)
• Subsidies / tax breaks / welfare (commercial, industrial, maybe residential? It'd be a subtraction )
• Special taxes for specific purposes
• Sin taxes (ex. alcohol, tobacco and other things of this kind--this one's just for commercial)
• Tariffs / import taxes (commercial and industrial)
• Effective taxation rate that somehow represents an abstracted average net taxation for all the applicable taxes of each group (all?)

 

Now, in all honesty, SimCity 4 would become a finance game if each and every relevant taxable element were represented explicitly. So far the game only represents these finance elements:

• An abstract tax that somehow applies uniformly to everyone within each occupant group
• Transit fees, tolls and parking fees (and with the NAM, a fuel/vehicle-miles traveled/vehicle consumables tax)
• Effective utility cost rates
• Transactions from neighbor deals
• Bonds with a very high interest rate (wonder if the interest rate could be modded to be variable, dependent on the city's financial health, mayor rating and difficulty level)
• Cost and revenue from ordinances 

[CorinaMarie 29,934]

16 minutes ago, Lucario Boricua said:

Bonds with a very high interest rate (wonder if the interest rate could be modded to be variable, dependent on the city's financial health, mayor rating and difficulty level)

I can answer this one. No.

Here's where that is set:

It's a single entry so you can only chose one value. That one value could be altered and mods could be made for each difficulty level with different bond tax rates. Ofc, you'd have to manually move whichever mod into place in plugins (removing any other). I'm guessing if swapping in a different one and then  loading a city tile which had bonds created with one tax rate, but loaded with a different rate in plugins, it could really goof up the city save data.

[carlosmarcelo 984]

On 04/01/2020 at 6:25 AM, CorinaMarie said:

The little Sims with a mere 8 or 9 percent total tax live in a dream world.

In fact, the golden dream is to pay ONLY ONE monthly tax. Even if it were a 30% flat tax, it would be cheaper than the effort to operationalize multiple lower taxes. 
Nowadays we have technology for that, but unfortunately everyone wants a tax to call their own. 

[Lucario Boricua 7,062]

It'd make things super simple but there's more to taxes than meets the eye. Part of the complexity of taxes is that they can be used for:

• Funding specific government initiatives (ex. gas tax for freeway construction + maintenance)
• Acting as a financial dissuasive for certain actions (ex. tariffs, sin taxes, carbon tax)
• Certain tax types are more effective at countering tax evasion (ex. sales tax and VAT are more effective than income tax for this purpose)
• Unequal taxation can be used to incentivize certain economic sectors (tax breaks for select industries, tax haven policy)
• Certain tax deductions can be used to incentivize consumer spending (ex. deductibility of mortgage taxes or car depreciation)
• Certain taxes apply only to people/corporations who would be direct beneficiaries of specific government programs (ex. payroll taxes for pensions / social security, telecom taxes for telecom subsidies...)

Taxes are far more elaborate than simply funding a government's operation.

[Propfam 2,315]

On 4/1/2020 at 3:30 PM, chfzdn said:

Hello everyone,

In SimCity 4, there is a thing called taxes. But as you might realized, these are property taxes for different zoning and wealth. In real life, property tax rate is different from region to region. In my country, the tax is 0.5% for taxable land and buildings. The game defaults of 8% is too high in my opinion. So, I want myself and you to experiment with 1% tax rate. The consequence is significant. Now, you can make a city with lots of demand available.

I hope this experiment to be successful. Thanks.

Just to clarify, 0.5% property tax is yearly. So, if this rate implemented to the game, it will be 0.04%. Of course, you can only input up to 1 place after the dot so it will be 0%, or no income at all. To gain income, you have to input 0.1% or greater. So, the tax will 1.2% annually.

Correct me if I wrong. Thanks.

[Lucario Boricua 7,062]

The percentage does not make a difference across time scales, so long as it remains the same each month. The game calculates the tax percent based on the occupant's monthly income, not the annual income.

[xxdita 1,097]

There's a mod for that. 

easymoney.dat from the RCI Multi mod set. As it says in the description: Multiplies the monthly income of your taxes by 10 so you can lower taxes to 1% and still run your city easily.

It works quite nicely, with no negative side effects that I've seen. Probably one of the best money cheats I've found. 

I just have to fight Cleanitol now and then to get it back. Somebody evidently thought it shouldn't be used with CAM. Silly them. 

[jeffryfisher 2,176]

On 1/5/2020 at 12:54 PM, Lucario Boricua said:

how do other players interpret the game's tax system

I use NAM's TSCT to collect 1c per mile (US$0.01) for automobiles. I consider it as a 30c per gallon gasoline tax (very common in RL). It pays all my bills.

PS: I forget the conversion from US$ to Simoleons.