Trope-a-Day: Intimidating Revenue Service

Intimidating Revenue Service: The Imperial Revenue is really quite happy and fluffy as an organization; it helps that thanks to the Empire’s by-explicit-act only citizenship and please-agree-to-this-to-enter border crossings, the tax really is opt-in for almost everyone; that the Empire Services Fee really is The Tax, a single one which applies to individuals and organizations without distinction; and that The Tax is limited to no more than 20% by the Imperial Charter and is currently hovering around 3.6%.  Needless to say, given all this, the degree of actually, genuinely, not-a-euphemism voluntary compliance they achieve is… impressive. Hell, you don’t even have to fill in an intrusively detailed tax return – just work out the appropriate amount and send ’em a check. They trust you.

(They can be quite intimidating to people who are determined to cheat their way around paying that 3.6% they agreed to up front, but popular opinion is that those people pretty much asked for it.)

3 thoughts on “Trope-a-Day: Intimidating Revenue Service

  1. On the other hand, I do wonder what the various access fees, use fees, and voluntary organization membership fees all add up to.

    The two examples I am thinking of are:

    For the case of the eldrae, the dogcatcher org that has already been shown as an example, that in our world is a government activity paid for out of taxes.

    In our world, up until the 1930s, building things like sidewalks and hospitals were funded by the voluntary merchants associations and voluntary fraternal organizations. And while membership was completely voluntary, and while participating in such fundraising while a member was again completely voluntary, NOT being a member, or NOT being seen to throwing a goodly amount into the hat when it was passed, was guaranteed to freeze you out of society, and if you were a member of the professions, completely out of your ability to practice your profession.

  2. Pingback: Taxation: Not-a-Taxes | The Eldraeverse

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