Taxes

[Gary V. Foss]

>

Actually, I don't think it is Law holdings that collect taxes. If we
use our government as an example, we see that it is the bureacracy that
collects taxes. The fraction of money actually collected by law
holdings (in their role as enforcers of the taxation laws) is pretty
small compared to the amount that is raked up by the tax collectors.
The bureacracy is controlled by the province ruler rather than the law
holder, so it is he that collects the lion's share of the taxes.

Besides, the Rulebook talks about how the Law holder could attempt to
garner taxes from the province itself, but normally this would make no
sense because they are usually one and the same. If they are owned by
two different regents, however, the law holder could try to garnish
taxes from the province ruler. How could the Law holder do so if it
were not the province itself that collected the taxes?

- -Gary

[Tim Nutting]

Is not the better example of tax collection that of the Roman Empire?
There we see that a single individual within a township could bid for the
right to collect taxes for the Empire based on an assessment of the tax
value of a given community. The tax collector was not furnished any money
for this deed, but there was no attention paid to how much he chose to line
his pockets so long as the money made it to the government.

We have to keep in mind that the peasantry and even some upper class
nobility will not have very good communication. They do not have the
access that we have to know what our tax dollars are going for, and the
government could care less as to whether or not you can afford your taxes,
they must be paid.

I have no idea how long this trend continued in European history, but I
suspect it migrated from a wealthy landowner to a titled noble in a given
region, perhaps a knight of the realm or some such?

Just some thoughts...

Tim Nutting

[Jim Cooper]

Tim Nutting wrote:
> I have no idea how long this trend continued in European history, but I suspect it migrated from a wealthy landowner to a titled noble in a given region, perhaps a knight of the realm or some such?<

That's right - in the feudal system, the landowners collected the money
(well, ok, BR feudalism isn't exactly feudalism, but thats for another
post). They also are responsible for holding court and dispensing the
lord's justice to those who work their land.

My point is that the law(yers) and the tax collectors are one and the
same - those guys riding around in shiny suits baking their brains all
day and beating themselves over the head with big sticks - dats them.
Those guys are the law, plus its their responsibility to relay the taxes
on up the line to the big bosses during the harvest season.

So, Duatha has a point, in a certain fashion. Its just that normally,
these guys would do the lawful thing and give the money to the province
ruler (as per the rules). But, also, there is nothing saying they can't
'creatively withhold' such funds either (as per the law claims rules).

Cheers,
Darren

[Gary V. Foss]

Jim Cooper wrote:

> That's right - in the feudal system, the landowners collected the money
> (well, ok, BR feudalism isn't exactly feudalism, but thats for another
> post). They also are responsible for holding court and dispensing the
> lord's justice to those who work their land.
>
> My point is that the law(yers) and the tax collectors are one and the
> same - those guys riding around in shiny suits baking their brains all
> day and beating themselves over the head with big sticks - dats them.
> Those guys are the law, plus its their responsibility to relay the taxes
> on up the line to the big bosses during the harvest season.
>
> So, Duatha has a point, in a certain fashion. Its just that normally,
> these guys would do the lawful thing and give the money to the province
> ruler (as per the rules). But, also, there is nothing saying they can't
> 'creatively withhold' such funds either (as per the law claims rules).

This may be true, but their right to collect the taxes came from the guy who ruled. In BR terms, even if a law holding does collect all the gold (which I'm still not 100% convinced of) if they tried to
keep it all, they'd be using their authority unlawfully, as a result the people would flip out and stop paying their taxes and the rightful ruler would actually support them. Sure, a sheriff or tax
collector can skim plenty of the top (which there are already rules for in the game) but if a big amount of the gold doesn't get to the province ruler then they would get ousted pretty quickly.

Gary

[Dom]

>Darren wrote

>So, Duatha has a point, in a certain fashion. Its just that normally,
>these guys would do the lawful thing and give the money to the province
>ruler (as per the rules). But, also, there is nothing saying they can't
>'creatively withhold' such funds either (as per the law claims rules).


In order for a regent to claim any taxes initially he or she must
have invested a province, and ruled it up to a level where they are
entitled to claim money at the severity they have declared. The
infrastructure for claiming Taxes is (IMO) part of the hefty cost
in GB of ruling up provinces in comparison to establishing law holdings.

A law holder could using an Espionage action steal money from the
province regent, and would be assisted by the level or his law holding
making it easier. In addition if the law holder other than a regent
is not supporting the regents levels of taxation then there may be
a lot of unrest in the provinces affected.



Dom
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