Tax System and making money.

[FACEofINSANITY]

Now i know this is either already been done, or is way to early but nun the less i thought it be good to discuss.

Now i have played personally a lot of city builders, and non has ever come close to actually making a balanced and decently realistic tax, income, expenses system and such, i believe simcity4 and cities XL came somewhat close enough in some parts but failed short in others parts of the system.

basically, We all know the standad tax system for commercial, industry and residential, with some form of break down to the classes like poor, middle and rich classes, and types of industrial, simcity 4 (simcity5 was okay, but it really lacked the potential of its design) really did this well, as far as i can remember city xl lacked the basic while allowing to increase charges other stuff and such, which was okay, but it lacked the entirety of what actually happens realistically, now i know cant have to much realism cause its to difficult or what not, that's not what I'm saying here, i spent some time doing stuff in y local council and know how some of the stuff works and thought i would pass this on and see what you guys think.

what i do suggest is instead of doing the old, tax the hell out of the city dwellers to get to afford the essentials, rather set payment systems for the different stuff, or have a privatization of those systems to loosen the grip of taxes so we can actually somewhat mimic real life economics of the tax system, like paying for bus fairs, privatized power and water so we don't have to pay maintenance on those buildings or halves the maintenance, private school systems or school payments, this would go greatly to mimic something of real life and also remove that feeling of that feeling we all know "OH god?! to afford that new power station or hospital i need to increase taxes again"

1. the simple and elegant tax system of commercial, residential, and industrial with a break down of their classes, rich, poor, middle, high tech, etc, etc, to edit their tax through.

2. Transport systems to change and regulate fairs and such to use those services, which could lead to some areas getting less service then others if privatized or somethigng which causes issues with traffic and such.

3. ability to either privatize or require payments for services for water, power, and waste disposal, this could have a number of effects like lesser quality in the services or something the like.

4. Services like, health, security, fire protection, should have some form of tax or payment to use or have the ability to choose to use to pay for something of those services, even having speed cameras to farm $$$ like they do in real life or such, this would do great cause while cops go about revenue raising this could allow crime rates to increase or something.

5. stuff to do with mining and specialty things like tourism, and such could have special taxes to produce extra revenue, like with tourism tax, this upsets tourists and drops your tourism ranking or something but produces much needed $$$.

6. education, now when i went to school, which was public i still had to pay school fees, this should be represented in game as an option as well, which can help lessen the burden of education and such, but maybe lowers education efficiency or something the likes.

this is kind of like the policy selection thing that sim city 4 had but be more specific, these things would go great in lowering the tax burdening we all know that i know annoys me when your trying to grow a city, but have to tax heavily on the citizens to get the services going.

its merely a thought, that i had and thought i would share

 

[Chaapa]

I'd consider your suggestions bare rock bottom. Implementing a functioning VAT, have a separation of taxation-sources, being able to outsource management of city services to entrepreneurs, or privatize them completely, introducing fees like road fees, water fees, allowing special tax privileges and so forth. I figure a city builder should have its cities act as city states, rather than a city within a country. Then they'd have an unlimited ability to modify (economic) laws as they desire, but then they might also miss the "city builder-genre".

But yeah... more economy, more society. Less pretty digital lego-set.

 

[ed84]

I was disappointed to hear in one video one of the lead people say that the economic part will be pretty simple. We may be able to set tax rates for certain zones, but they don't really want much depth in that area. I think they want to appeal to as many people as possible, but I fear, and really know, that this will make the experience of building a city a fairly shallow experience.

 

[FACEofINSANITY]

I'd consider your suggestions bare rock bottom. Implementing a functioning VAT, have a separation of taxation-sources, being able to outsource management of city services to entrepreneurs, or privatize them completely, introducing fees like road fees, water fees, allowing special tax privileges and so forth. I figure a city builder should have its cities act as city states, rather than a city within a country. Then they'd have an unlimited ability to modify (economic) laws as they desire, but then they might also miss the "city builder-genre".

But yeah... more economy, more society. Less pretty digital lego-set.

yea it kind of is a small amount of what could be done, but we have to think of the small time players in some regard since their the ones that make games money, but just to have small things like managing bus fares and such would go a long way to help manage costs in a city, rather then having obscene tax rates.

I was disappointed to hear in one video one of the lead people say that the economic part will be pretty simple. We may be able to set tax rates for certain zones, but they don't really want much depth in that area. I think they want to appeal to as many people as possible, but I fear, and really know, that this will make the experience of building a city a fairly shallow experience.

you can appeal to many with a simple managing system, like simcity5 had all its tax and maintenance in one panel, something like that were you select one area like roads or transport, and then have a list of maintenance and areas were you can set toll rates for roads and such, which would in my opinion be a lot better then preset values which makes it more fun, because you can work out a nice equal ground for your taxes and such.

and would still be simple enough for new people to be able to play.

 

[SonGoku]

I was disappointed to hear in one video one of the lead people say that the economic part will be pretty simple. We may be able to set tax rates for certain zones, but they don't really want much depth in that area. I think they want to appeal to as many people as possible, but I fear, and really know, that this will make the experience of building a city a fairly shallow experience.

I set the tax rates in the beginning and leave them alone for a long, long time, until the citizens OR the advisor suggest I could lower/raise them. In most city builders it really does not matter because the games are modelled that way that the player can roll in the bucks very easily. And that is not realistic at all. Raising/lowering taxes or even implementing new ones should be really a tough fight with the bureaucracy, the citizens/firms settled in the city and - if there is any - state government.