Living with taxes

Day 1,507, 10:52 • Published in Ireland Ireland • by Sweet Drinker

Today is a good day for an article because there are examples of just about everything I wish to discuss available.

As you know weapons have spent basically a full day at the new 15% VAT rate.

What has been the result of this, and how should you respond?



Well firstly: have prices risen?
As you can see, mkt prices of Q5 weapons have maintained the same price levels they were at when VAT was 1% : 38IEP

But let's pick apart the diagram above:
You'll Notice United Irishmen has a large offer up at exactly 38IEP
That's because United Irishmen is acting as a subsidary of the treasury.
We intend to always have such an offer up (it might be soldout for brief periods)

Now further down the diagram you'll see a red line with 43.5IEP next to it.
That's our 'buy line'. This represents the pre-tax-hike price + the new tax.

As you can see, the offers between our offer and the buy line are checkmarked. That's because we can buy up those offers, write off the taxes to the treasury, and resell them to the public for 38IEP.

And that's exactly what we do, buy them off Irish ppl, and sell them to Irish ppl for cheaper. As long as we don't buy anything below the buy line, the government doesn't lose any money (except potential tax revenue ofc).

Offers below the buy line are more expensive than the new tax level would imply (sometimes ridiculously so). So we don't buy them.

Notice the purple line now. This fellow has placed an offer lower than ours.
There is nothing wrong with that, if he can make a profit selling for lower than our offer, fairplay to him, and great news for the buyer!

However what needs to be clear to everybody is:
You do not need to compete against our offers. If your going to lose money by undercutting the bank, don't do it! As long as your price falls within the buy line, you're stuff is gonna sell.

Now here we have the Q6 market:


Notice that the price of Q6 weapons is also fixed at what is was when VAT was 1%. And quite obviously it is the bank doing so.

But you may notice a problem on this market: there are no other offers within the buy line.
Now this isn't a big problem for us, we can import them from ally markets
(Those particular Q6's were actually purchased from a prominent Irish producer).
However a savvy investor might realize that this presents an opportunity:
If you were to say, buy some Q6's from America and place them on the Irish market within the buyline.. it's pretty obvious what would happen 😉

It should be made clear: this works just as effectively if the VAT rate was 25%. The buy line will just be adjusted to include the increased rate.


Now you maybe are wondering 'what about Q1-4 weapons?'.
Sadly the answer is, we're ignoring them.

The fact is that weapons are an undynamic market. Regardless of prices, a Q5 weapon will always be intrinsically better than a Q2 weapon.

It is true that citizens occassionally buy a small amount of low quality weapons. However, not enough of them to have a serious impact on our nation's capabilities (not compared to the potential impact of the extra tax revenue). With high VAT and subsidy only on high quality levels, most likely low quality level weapons will lose the (very slight) cost advantage they previously had.

If your concerned about low quality weapons co owners' sales: 'Somebody' will buy them. But it won't be us. So it make take awhile.


About Foo😛
Food is a dynamic market. Since there is no intrinsic difference between food qualities, any Qlevel has the potential to be the best value for purchasers.

I feel that a dynamic market should be left alone if possible.


The Future:
I feel eIreland should take full advantage of the potential on the weapons market. 25% VAT really can be effectively implimented without our nation sufferring any considerable loss, and there is truly so much to gain.

Food taxes on the other hand should be minimized for several reasons.
It's a dynamic competitve market.
Young citizens most cost effectively increase their dmg with food.
We don't need it, weapons generate loads of revenue.

It's worth noting that our Q6 weapon prices don't conform to international trends.

USA:
26.8 Q6/gold
31.5 Q5/gold

CNY:
26.1 Q6/gold
31.2 Q5/gold

BRL:
26.9 Q6/gold
31.5 Q5/gold

IEP
21.1 Q6/gold
30 Q5/gold

Obviously our nation lacks the production bonuses of these other countries so we should expect to pay more than they do.
However discrepancy of purchasing power between Q5 and Q6 weapons is not in line with global trends.
Irish goods are overpriced, but Q6 weapons are over-overpriced!
In the long term we hope normalize this discrepancy. However that is not realistic at this time.

I know this was article was tediously long.
Thank you for taking the time.