Makes it far too easy to reduce the debt, same problem as in D3. If I implement a 90% flat tax, it seems that it has no effect on how much I make from the income tax, but if someone has a 90% flat tax suddenly imposed on them won’t that leave very little money left for the income tax?
Agreed, it seems the point of a flat income tax is to replace the tiered income tax, not to operate in parallel with it. Also as you say, you can implement both at 90% and effectively take 90% of their income twice over.
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Come on guys, it’s difficult enough to balance the budget and / or get debt down as it is! Getting rid of the dual effect with flat & income taxes would remove enjoyment. If you don’t like it, then don’t select both taxes. Let’s think of the players who aren’t super-experts!
In D3 Africa, flat taxes operated differently to in D3 - I.e., you couldn’t get a second income stream from flat taxes - and some countries (esp Egypt) were just overwhelming from a debt / deficit point of view. I was really pleased to see that D4 has got the same approach to flat taxes as D3.
I disagree - If you’re finding the game too hard, you can adjust the difficulty slider before you initiate the game.
I think it’d be better if implementing a flat tax replaced the income tax (and vice versa). I don’t think it makes sense that it takes political capital to implement a flat tax, and then further political capital to remove the income tax; in effect this means it’s politically easier to double tax the citizens than it is to replace one system with another - irl a double tax would be harder to get passed.
The real solution is to only have income tax and then, instead of the flat-tax policy, have a progressiveness slider. Could even subsume wealthy tax breaks on the super regressive end, and add an effect of negative taxes (where the poorest actually gain money) on the progressive end
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Democracy 3 patched in a -50% to both if they were both running at once.
I think instead, progressive tax ONLY should have a -X% where X is what flat tax is set to.
This should simulate the flat tax being used as a “base” for the progressive tax.
I am aware that we need to fix this. Its just a matter of getting an elegant solution that doesnt feel too hacky or forced, and which doesnt require explaining to the player.
To be honest, unless the player prioritises flat taxes very early, on many games in certain countries the maximum political capital cap means flat taxes aren’t really an option anyway! Personally I find that frustrating but no doubt the purists on this forum will applaud the realism.
Well arguably, it’s not quite as simple as flat out removing the ability to have both. Once the option is gone, some stuff probably ought to be rebalanced around that change.
I think some sort of flat tax could be implemented at the same time of income tax (which should distinguish and be possible to adjust between more or nothing “progressive”). There are countries like France where we can find it. But, with a really high flat tax your revenue from income tax should be reduced.
Effects of high taxation reducing revenue are already in the game.