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I produce Q2 Houses made by Canadians for Canadians. $375+ tax on the market.
A BIG Thank You to all hard working employees and customers of Royal Chinookery Realitors.

After I cut the wages for all my employees, I'll only have to tell them it's because of Ralph de Ver and all the cabinet ministers who voted for this.

I'm curious why there wasn't any discussion on this import tax cut either here or on the offsite forums? Why didn't the Gov't even start a dialogue on the matter?

MIB I agree, the government should consult industry before making changes to ensure the viability of Canadian owned and operated business.

For my first company I decided to try the housing market after a bit of reearch. The first couple of weeks, it was all about operating at a loss and finding good employees. The next couple of weeks, saw the company hold its own and pretty much break even on every house sold. For the last week or so, I've finally got the company making a slight profit on sales. Well that appears to be over now. It's moves like this import tax cut that shows our Gov't wants the Canadian housing market to fail.

First off the Canadian market has a VERY small housing supply, our Q1 houses are about 1-2.5 gold over the international average.

Q2 houses are overpriced 3-4 gold over the international markets (data collected using ereptools.pl) Our lone Q3 offer is 9 gold over the average.

Prices on houses are far too high and the supply far too low to effectively met the housing demands of Canada.

Furthermore, the infant industries argument can not be used in response, the housing market is the only industries intentionally kept above international norms to allow a sector to develop. It has not devloped in the months of time it has had to do this.

Tax Discussion on the off-site forum is occuring in congress, where it belongs. If you would like to see and be involved in that discussion contact your local congressmen and demand transparency, eventually the system will change. I can't make that call.

Will this put you out of business? possibly, will Canada be hurt by this... a little bit, in the long run is it better for Canada? Yes.

- Minister of Finance, 5th Mandate

I do not necessarily belive that the housing market will fail since I do offer a very competitive price for my houses, wich even with a 20% import tax will be hard to match or even beat. However we will soon find out im sure.
On a positive note, lowering the import tax will make available higher quality houses to Canadians since we are not producing them ourselves.

Just so I understand, they're trying to strengthen the Cdn. economy by weakening it?
Certainly someone that's Minister of Finance, 5th Mandate could come up with a real way of fixing the Cdn. economy that didn't involve attempting to bankrupt honest companies.

The reason housing prices are where they are in Cda. is because of the price of the raw materials and high employee wages. The main thing this tax cut will do is raise the unemployment rate for lower skilled workers. I for one will be telling my employees to stop training for the army and get their wellness up to counter-act this poorly thought out tax cut. So if I think about it, this tax cut is simply going to weaken Cda. militarily even more so.

Maybe local prices are over international prices, but I remember you that a HOUSE company, employ 20 staffs, allowing them to buy food and keep savings for there projects. We will see foreign dumping in our eCanadian housing market and our shop will close. What our government will do when eCanadian population will begin to starve because there will be no more company to hire them?

I can tell you my HOUSE company was the ONLY employer to offer a job to level 0 players, and that situation occur for many days!

And for the HOUSE supply, I can assure you that it is enough, there is always houses on the market, and I can tell you that they stay on the market for many days, before being sold. So the one that think they know this industry, you should go back doing your homework before passing CATASTROPHIC law in Congress.

What a disgrace to see political implication in our nation business sector !

POLITICIANS OUT OF THE BUSINESS SECTOR, for the sake of our economy !

/Rearden Industries wrote/
"Tax Discussion on the off-site forum is occuring in congress, where it belongs."

Should the housing industry just threaten to strike?
Maybe then you wouldn't mind talking with us before taking drastic measures such as this import tax cut. The striking strategy seemed to work well with the food industry recently. Is that the only way to get into a dialogue about taxes with politicians around here?

*shakes head in disgust*

The unfortunate thing for the housing industry is that being over priced for what ever reason causes people to shop else where. I have seen several advertisements in the media from foreign companies selling outside the market place in one to one sales. By being more competitive you might get more sales that would off set the over head you will see from the tax change.

Tax cuts only work if they are made in the right order...

#1 - Income Taxes across the board as low as sustainable which will give the consumer more buying power.

#2 - VAT Tax removal on houses and food, making individual wellness as cheap as possible.

#3 - Import Taxes for Land industries cut low enough to allow the buyers within eCanada choices for their products, but not so low as to cripple our producers.

#4 - Wait for 3-8 weeks to allow our companies to cope with the new changes and adjust to the new taxes, as well as build up some capital to seek exporting licensure

#5 - Trim import taxes on all manufacturing and construction sectors until choice and competition is available to our citizens, but not so much that we destroy our industries.


This will allow our companies to become exporters, bringing in money from other countries to our own, and allow each citizen the ability to keep their wellness up for much cheaper costs. The Higher wellness will directly impact our industries in a positive way making them far more productive, which is good for everybody.

My houses are usually priced $15-$20 Cdn. cheaper than most of my competitors and they always sell pretty quickly (within a day max). I'm not out to try and get every penny of profit I can, but to give the Cdn. buyer a good deal. This new tax cut is telling me to try and rip off my customers all I can. You can thank the Cdn. Gov't for that.

You'll be happy to know this law passed unconstitutionally.

Like I just told MIB. Canada's wood prices are 5th lowest internationally while the housing market is the 5th highest. The goal is not to hamstring companies but to benefit the greatest number of Canadians possible.

If the housing industry can present me (or anyone in Congress) with hard facts, I am willing to reopen the debate.

Personnally, as a manager of a HOUSE company, my devotion is directed toward my employees. They are the one punching every day and making the job to build the houses.

I understand that attention should be addressed toward customers, but customers on the market are anonymous, and my employees ARE NOT.

A primary condition in order to provide employee with decent wages that allow them to increase wellness, buy food and house, is that their employer can stay in business.

Current price on the HOUSE market, allow to buy raw material and pay staff.
Each HOUSE company hire 20 employees, wich represent important costs.

Lower HOUSE price will NOT encourage new local participants to enter market.

VAT should be lower instead to rise accessibility for customers.

Canada is known to have atrociously high prices for housing. This situation should be remedied by improving existing Canadian industries, not by importing them from other countries. By lowering the tariff the government is showing a lack of confidence in their own industry and is severely threatening it. We have a surplus of wood, therefore it seems foolish to me that we would need to buy what we already have from other countries.

Also, eCanada will lack of skilled employees in CONSTRUCTION, when hospitals and defense systems buildings will be required.

A very low qualification and productivity of eCanada workforce in this sector will be of a crucial important during WAR times.

Citizens should NOT be concentrated only in raw material and manufacturing facilities, because it will create inflation on wages for employers needing workforce, wich will reflect in a higher manufactured good prices.

"Should the housing industry just threaten to strike"

If the housing market strikes, eCanadians will simply shop internationally, save anywhere from 1-3 gold on their purchase, and then you'll really be screwed.


"This new tax cut is telling me to try and rip off my customers all I can"

Fact is, you've already been doing that, been ripping off the eCanadian people for months now. Now that you'll have to be more competitive globally, you're in arms because it'll be harder for you to ream the eCanadian people so freely. That's all.

unconstitutionally?

What do you know about running a BUSINESS BradleyAT ?

If it is so much a lucrative business, why don't you have one ?

I am new to this game, so please correct me if I make a mistake here:
1. If more people have better housing, that will positively effect their wellness.
2. If more people have higher wellness, that will improve productivity
3. If productivity increases, more goods will be produced for the same cost.
4. More goods at the same cost means goods produced more cheaply.
5. Lower cost of goods produced means the price can be reduced.
6. Lower price of goods means better chance of selling abroad.

If I am correct, then this will even improve the housing industry in Canada. Have I missed something? I am not talking philosophy...just game mechanics.

For that, you will have to allow the fact that to start the wheel, employee will need to accept to have their wage slashed...
in order to compete foreign dumping.

And if their paycheck is reduce, they will go to an other employer in an other type of business that will pay higher, and you will depleted your possible and accessible workforce.

Industry companies will go banckupcy and canadians will be totally dependent of foreign market for HOUSING.

You will have no qualified staff in CONSTRUCTION in eCanada.

Unbalance economy leed to INFLATION.

I encourage all of the housing owners look wiki "comparative advantage" the wiki article is decent at explaining the concept.

Losing a handful of housing companies would not hurt Canada in the slightest, by the last census (about a month 1/2 old) a mere 5% of the population works in construction the most valuable of those workers are employed by the state to produce Q4 hospitals and Q5 defense systems. 5% of Canada's 4800 person economy worked in construction and were suddenly unemployed, all of them would be able to gain meaningful employment within days, the land sector is always hungry for new employees to produce the diamonds that fuel the world (Canada is the number 2 producer of Diamonds after Indonesia).

Even if there were some residual unemployed the state run training companies would be able to absorb them easily.


In other words, strike if you want, you will accomplish nothing. Unlike manufactured goods, especially food, which are hard to live without. We can live without Canadian produced houses and Canada would improve in the long run by you utilizing your capital in raw materials and exporting, or manufacturing and supplying domestic demand.

My duty is to the other 95% of Canadians who don't work in construction, who want cheap affordable housing. My main method of reducing costs is imports, VAT change very little.

Also Rowlock, interesting idea for any major shifts in the future. But these are simply monthly adjustments to fit the changing nature of Canada.

Lastly, the only other tax changes planned for this month is a 3% VAT reduction on manufactured goods, 1% income tax reduction on manufactured goods, 10% drop in Food Imports.

Are Canadian House Company owners actually whining about taxes? Just be glad you don't pay anywhere near what the rest of Canadian industry does. 20% import tax decrease won't hurt nearly as much as having 10-X-10 instead of 2-X-3 would.

CFH: Thank you for your answer. This was a factor that I had not considered. I guess now we will need to see whether the increased imports have that much of an immediate effect or not, and whether eCanadian Housing Manufacturers really do need to reduce wages...or if they can accomplish the same thing by simply reducing their workforce. I am not familiar enough with the numbers to make a guess at it.
Regardless, Rearden's comment about comparative advantages is well-taken. No one wants to see an industry suffer, but we cannot be everything to everybody.

Being a new player with businesses in eCanada and eUSA, our 200USD Q1 houses go flying off of the market, but 200CAD Q1 houses don't. But we'll try making them anyway.

The House Market is to low in Canada to open this part of the market. I don't understand why it is proposed in the first place...

LOL this is silly!!! next you'll want them to increase the import tax on Iron!! We all know our population should only work in diamond and gift production, don't you guys know anything!!
/sarcasm off

I think it is a great thing! My wellness has been suffering for a long time now because i don't have the huge amount of money you are all asking for your houses! How much better would all of ECanada be if we were all able to raise our wellness and work harder, produce more and we could all make more money not just the owners of the housing companies!
i think it is about time that you had to be more competitive!!!

@BradleyAT
My comment about the housing market striking was a point to congress that we shouldn't have to go to such an extreme just to get a dialogue with them, like the food industry obviously did.

"Fact is, you've already been doing that, been ripping off the eCanadian people for months now."

If you have proof of this please present your facts. I don't appreciate being falsely accused of something. If someone came on here and accused you of being a chronic masterbater, does that make it true?

@Erik Christensen

1. If more people have better FOOD/GIFTS, that will positively effect their wellness.
2. Etc.
3. Etc.
4. Etc.
5. Etc.
6. Etc.

With your reasoning, I don't understand why the Gov't isn't also lowering the import tax on food and gifts. If it's going to increase wellness, then lowering the import tax on all food and gifts would triple increase everyones wellness.

Now I'd like to present the biggest hypocricy in this entire fiasco.
The Cdn. Gov't contends that we Home builders have our prices too high for the average Canuck to afford. They say a little more competition will be good for business and the public.

Well I give you "Canada Housing".
http://www.erepublik.com/en/organization/1047221" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/organization[..]7221

That's right, the state owned Housing company. The Housing company owned by the same people who are telling the Home builders that their product is selling for too much cash.

Well Mr. Gov't officials/owners of Canada Housing. If you wanted to have lower costing homes in Canada, why the hell are you selling homes to the public for (currently) 218.36 CAD? You're prices have been the most expesive ever since I started my company.

On one hand you say you want lower house prices, but on the other hand you're over charging for homes yourself. Maybe an easier way of fixing the so called housing crisis in Canada would be for Canada Homes to simply start selling all their houses for a more competitive price. Other companies would be forced to follow suit or fall by the wayside.

I'm now beginning to think this tax cut has more to it than meets the eye. Especially since such a simple solution was available to the Gov't.
F'n hypocrites.

@MIB
Yes, that is a reasonable extension of my reasoning...provided my reasoning is actually correct! In fact, many economists insist that tariffs of any sort are damaging overall to both the importer and exporter. But this view is far from proven in real life, and even if it was it would not be proof of it being true in game. Nevertheless, it makes the most sense to me.
The best explanation of this that I have ever heard goes as follows: Assume tariffs (taxes across borders) are good for the importer (the one imposing the tariff). National borders are arbitrary, and have zero effect in free trade. If tariffs are good for national borders, then they must also be good for regional (provincial) border, which are also arbitrary.
If they are good for provincial borders, then they must also be food for civic borders...and so on down to the individual level, at which point you simply have a sales tax that affects everybody.
Anyway, this applies only in the case in which one assumes that a national government needs no money...which is ridiculous, of course, since they need lots of it. So then the question becomes WHAT to tax, rather than WHETHER to tax. And the most sensible solution is to make sure you don't tax your strongest industries at or higher than the national average. Which ones those are, I am not sure yet as I am still pretty new to the game.

@MIB:

Canada Housing is a state company, it should NOT trigger war price, but allow market to have sufficient OFFER at natural market participant pricing. Canada Housing benefit of an unlimited bank account, the government, wich make this company subsidised, wich in no way can be considered as healthy competition.

Stimulus package plz?
Well, its time to start looking for another job.
*Swings bag of clothes over shoulder and walks towards the sunrise.
All the ignorant congressman look and see: Oh look! Lower taxes! Surely this must be a good thing!
How many actually thought about what they were doing?

Maybe the Ministry of Industries can invest in private companies?

I don't have 50 gold available to purchase Canada Housing.

@MIB

The Government could price their houses for 5 CAD if they wanted to... Then where would all your business go?

An import tax barrier is a false barrier at best. Canadian citizens can simply buy a couple of move tickets, move to a country where housing is inexpensive, and then move back to Canada with their new house in their carry on luggage. The Canadian dollar is strong, thus has excellent buying power abroad.

I run 4 companies, two here at home in Canada, one in the USA, and one in Romania. Canada appears to be over capacity in almost every industrial sector. Grain prices last week hit 0.30 CAD per bushel. No one can make a profit at that price. Labor, which was very expensive a couple of weeks ago, is not so expensive now, and many new workers work only a day or two and then go dormant.

Canada is stagnating. Labor rates are low, business margins are non-existent, and there is no war. Health of skill level 2 workers hovers around 40, and it's hard to get them to raise it. In both the USA and Romania anyone with experience level 5 or above can join the nearly daily fights, maintain their health above 90, and gain experience and rank rapidly.

I've seen the young and aggressive players leave Canada to play in these more exciting countries. Level 2 jobs Romania pay 8 RON/Day at a Q1 company, in Canada it's 3.20 CAD.

We need more than twiddling tax rates if Canada is to return to being a vibrant country.

The eCanada Constitution requires a 24-Hour discussion period before a law is officially brought to vote. When this law was proposed, the discussion hadn't yet been up for a full day.

FWIW: Cape Breton group companies pay Level 2 workers at 5.25.

http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/employment-policies-politiques-de-l-emploi-787434/1/20" target="_blank">http://www.erepublik.com/en/article/empl[..]/1/20

You are paying 2% income tax and 3% VAT while every other industry has 10% income and 10% VAT. STOP COMPLAINING

Taxes must remain stable. If you change taxes, you will Kill an Industrie for shure.

Yes, instead of the required 24 hours of debate there were only 22 hours or so. It was a minor problem that congress agreed was a problem, but people voted on it thinking before noticing the actual 24 hours were still not finished.

"This new tax cut is telling me to try and rip off my customers all I can"

Though I honor your statements about helping citizens of Canada by offering cheap housing, this statement does not follow your logic. Cheaper tax cuts would allow you to lower your prices further, which would tell you that congress is aiding your task. If you meant lower taxes for imported housing, then it still does not tell you anything about what congress wants you to do. If you still want to offer cheap houses, you are welcome to do so. A influx of cheaper imported housing on the market (if it exists, there is yet to me a major influx) would in fact not allow you to increase your prices to unreasonable levels, since these unreasonable levels would no longer be viable in a more competitive economy. If you could explain further about what you meant by this statement (anyone here, that is), I will bring it up when reevaluating this tax issue.

Dabman, cheaper tax is on IMPORTS goods, and do not allow local indusrty to sell cheaper, you are confused with VAT. Congress is in NO WAY HELPING LOCAL INDUSTRY, but is working against construction employees, wich now will see their wages reduce, allowing less investments in wellness that increase their productivity.

I am very pleased to see so many citizens defending this tax change proposed and passed by Congress, not Ralph de Ver, by Congress. Deepest apologies to the few business owners that it will initially affect but the strong and determined will adapt. Please keep in mind the bigger picture at hand; the intent of the change is to help benefit eCanada as a whole, especially 'younger' citizens.

Regards,

Ralph de Ver

Like if didn't have enough of state-owned Canada Housing to intervene in the market, now we see Deutschland Bank dumping cheap house in the market !

You're all stupid...

All of your input is being heard. Thus far I have gotten the following:

+Import taxes should be high enough to prevent cheap houses from flooding the market and destroying eCanada's housing market.

+Import taxes should be low enough to prevent oversea companies from message-marketing their houses, or eCanadian citizens from moving out to buy their houses.

Lower house prices will force some Canadian companies off the market, allowing others to lower their salaries until their prices become competitive with the imports.

Defense systems are a waste of money. Battles are usually won by overwhelming margins, not a few hundred or thousand points, which is what defense systems provide. A country needs 1 and exactly 1 Q5 hospital for its armed forces, which should move to that location in case of war. Extra ones are a waste of money. And in any case, starting to build hospitals and defense systems during a war is too late.