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Even in European countries that are much more laissez-faire than Norway has tax rates much higher than in SimCity. A friend here in Ireland¹ noticed that the in

by rmc 14y ago

Even in European countries that are much more laissez-faire than Norway has tax rates much higher than in SimCity. A friend here in Ireland¹ noticed that the income tax rate can only go up to 20% in the original, and at that rate, the population were very annoyed. [1] Barack Obama refered to Ireland as a tax haven recently http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/obama-forced-to-retract-allegation-that-ireland-is-a-tax-haven-26880430.html http://www.independent.ie/irish-news/obama-forced-to-retract...

winthrowe 14y ago
I think that the reason that the taxation rates are capped like that is that they represent a regional differential. You'd be annoyed too if your taxes were ten percent higher than a neighbouring town for no discernible reason.
raverbashing 14y ago
I think Sim City only is concerned with municipal rates. Well, in Ireland if you don't earn "too much" (less than +/- 32k€ per year) your (governmental) tax rate is 20%
- vidarh 14y ago
  I think that assumption is "tricky", in that Sim City lets you control a lot of things that would not come out of municipal budgets in most European countries, and this is part of what makes it unrealistic from a European perspective. The limit is actually ludicrously high if you consider municipal taxes. E.g. Norway has a tax load of somewhere around 40% (which includes the effect of up to 25% VAT - the income tax rate for most people is substantially lower), but only 12% of tax revenue, or 5% of income, ends up back in municipal coffers. The rest is spent in regional or national budgets. Of those 5%, maybe 3% actually is income taxes, and they're outside the control of the municipal government. So if we are to see it as municipal taxes, the limit is ridiculously high, from this perspective. If we are to see it as income taxes, or total tax load, it is way too low. But even the idea that the municipal government can control tax rate to that extent, and has that wide latitude in where the money gets spent is (fairly far) right wing from a European perspective.

by rmc 14y ago

winthrowe 14y ago

I think that the reason that the taxation rates are capped like that is that they represent a regional differential. You'd be annoyed too if your taxes were ten percent higher than a neighbouring town for no discernible reason.

raverbashing 14y ago

I think Sim City only is concerned with municipal rates. Well, in Ireland if you don't earn "too much" (less than +/- 32k€ per year) your (governmental) tax rate is 20%

vidarh 14y ago
I think that assumption is "tricky", in that Sim City lets you control a lot of things that would not come out of municipal budgets in most European countries, and this is part of what makes it unrealistic from a European perspective. The limit is actually ludicrously high if you consider municipal taxes. E.g. Norway has a tax load of somewhere around 40% (which includes the effect of up to 25% VAT - the income tax rate for most people is substantially lower), but only 12% of tax revenue, or 5% of income, ends up back in municipal coffers. The rest is spent in regional or national budgets. Of those 5%, maybe 3% actually is income taxes, and they're outside the control of the municipal government. So if we are to see it as municipal taxes, the limit is ridiculously high, from this perspective. If we are to see it as income taxes, or total tax load, it is way too low. But even the idea that the municipal government can control tax rate to that extent, and has that wide latitude in where the money gets spent is (fairly far) right wing from a European perspective.