Taxing Religions/Secret Societies

[Bedwyr]

Funny how that sounds just like the real world...


To clear up some things:

Secret Societies will not be taxed. I was discussing an idea on IRC about taxation for them, based on the concept that they will likely run some kind of "front" business, so a tax on that - at a much reduced rate - would not be a too horrible idea. But that's an idea, and the current code for the new estate system does not tax Secret Societies.

For religions, I may be talked into making the exact "discount" for religions a value the region lord can choose. Within some limits (i.e. not 100% tax reduction, but maybe between 0% and 90% in 10% increments). But that's definitely on the "post-release enhancements" list.

I find it utterly important to tax religions, because too many people have begun using them as banks. And quite frankly, the other option is to do things with limited treasuries or such. Also, because a couple of rich temples rightfully should give the region lord more gold to play with. And because it creates another source of conflict. The religion elders may want the lord to put all that gold right back into the temple - but instead of a game mechanic, there is now a human being here who could decide that he'd rather not...

I'm all for conflict, and lords who decide they want to tax the religions is all well and fun.

What I'm not for is making it impossible for religions to strongarm lords into making them exempt from taxes without requiring a non-trivial amount of work.  After many years of painful experience, things in the game that require large numbers of people to do something once a week (or once a month) don't happen.  They just don't.  People get sick of it, or forget, or don't make it back to their regions.

An option to tax temples = awesome.  Forcing people to tax temples = painful.

[Sacha]

On the subject of getting gold from guilds/temples... I've always wanted an option for infiltrators to break into temples and guildhouses much like they break into tax offices nowadays. Any chance this could be considered somewhere down the line?

[Chenier]

I'm all for conflict, and lords who decide they want to tax the religions is all well and fun.

What I'm not for is making it impossible for religions to strongarm lords into making them exempt from taxes without requiring a non-trivial amount of work.  After many years of painful experience, things in the game that require large numbers of people to do something once a week (or once a month) don't happen.  They just don't.  People get sick of it, or forget, or don't make it back to their regions.

An option to tax temples = awesome.  Forcing people to tax temples = painful.

I completely agree.

While religions might have been tax havens for some, legit religions are costly. Indeed, too costly if you ask me. Traditionally, realms sprung up artificial religions sometimes just to keep in check foreign faiths... After playing the religion game *a lot*, I consider this to have been a poor strategy. Costs thousands and thousands of gold to properly set up the religious infrastructure of a medium-sized faith, and months and months of nothing but preaching to have good follower %.

A simpler solution: just arrest the foreign priests when they enter your lands. Just costs a small police unit, which pretty much everyone can carry around (except traders and priests). Considering how most religions have very few priests, and that indeed a good number of old faiths have died because they lost theirs, this solution takes very little effort and gold.

Some people will say that "priests are powerful", and name stuff like "Claim region" and the like. With the amount of investments required for a religion to work, you may as well ask for all these funds, send it to the family home, and just outright buy the region... Getting the required follower % in hostile lands for meaningful regions and next to impossible anyways, and claiming a region without the support of the army (which you have to, since they'll try to stop you) is likely to lead to the region revolting too.

Taxing temples will just make the religion game that much less worth it. I can understand taxing temples of religions that aren't yours, but having one's temples taxed by one's own followers? That's just pressing the financial burden past the tolerable limit.

[JPierreD]

For religions, I may be talked into making the exact "discount" for religions a value the region lord can choose. Within some limits (i.e. not 100% tax reduction, but maybe between 0% and 90% in 10% increments). But that's definitely on the "post-release enhancements" list.

Why not start at 0% tax, and raise it over or above the region tax level, independently of it? One tax rate per temple, of course. It would provide the tension option without worrying about the scenario Bedwyr presented.

Other idea: Set an extra % tax for followers of certain religions. This would fit very well with the medieval setting, taxing religious minorities.

[Carna]

Other idea: Set an extra % tax for followers of certain religions. This would fit very well with the medieval setting, taxing religious minorities.

It would prompt more rebellions. That's a perk, not a downside, if you ask me.

[Indirik]

What I'm not for is making it impossible for religions to strongarm lords into making them exempt from taxes without requiring a non-trivial amount of work.  After many years of painful experience, things in the game that require large numbers of people to do something once a week (or once a month) don't happen.  They just don't.  People get sick of it, or forget, or don't make it back to their regions.

An option to tax temples = awesome.  Forcing people to tax temples = painful.

I have to agree with this. What I fear this will lead to is a constant hassle of repeatedly badgering people to put gold in the temples. It's already difficult enough to keep this stuff funded. Crank up the gold drain on the treasury, and it will just have to happen even more often. You'll have to keep more gold in the treasury to compensate, and then you'll just end up having more people randomly grab it, because "Hey, 200 gold! Woohoo!"

In SA I even made it one of the elder's responsibilities to watch temples, and make sure they stayed funded. But then that player gets bored with it. It never gets done. And you end up having to constantly hound people to get it done. Why? Because playing Temple Treasury Watch is boring, tedious, busywork.

We don't play BattleMaster to become bookkeepers and accountants. As rich and powerful nobles we should have legions of functionaries to take care of this kind of junk for us. Stuff like this turns the game into a job. And that's No Fun.

[De-Legro]

Perhaps what we need is a wealth tax for religions? Allow the Lord to set a tax of x% whenever the treasury is over Y amount?

[Vellos]

I find it utterly important to tax religions, because too many people have begun using them as banks.

Which is VERY medievally correct. Religions should be heavily advantaged (or have the possibility of a heavy advantage) in the financial markets, if we want to be even remotely Medieval.

It might even make it easier. The Lord receives funds he will replenish, which adjusts his gold balance, making it easier to make large withdrawals for one person.

Galvez' point is correct. Taxing guildhouses makes running mass money transfers easier. My character in Terran has hundreds of gold in surplus with every guild he is in (which is quite a few). Why? Because he taxes their treasuries, then replenishes them. As such, those guilds never actually gain much and never have a large sum of money on hand, but Hireshmont racks up surpluses he can use to shift around moneys however he wants. And I do this very aggressively, allowing me to move money very easily.

The zero-tax on temples means the only way for me to get a big surplus for religions is to actually give them cash they get to keep. Meaning I can never get net positive transactions (except for monthly account balance changes, but those are practically meaningless in most cases). Taxing temples will simultaneously raise major new overhead, decrease the possibility of large religions and temples prospering, and make financial tricks much easier for clever lords.

[De-Legro]

Which is VERY medievally correct. Religions should be heavily advantaged (or have the possibility of a heavy advantage) in the financial markets, if we want to be even remotely Medieval.

Galvez' point is correct. Taxing guildhouses makes running mass money transfers easier. My character in Terran has hundreds of gold in surplus with every guild he is in (which is quite a few). Why? Because he taxes their treasuries, then replenishes them. As such, those guilds never actually gain much and never have a large sum of money on hand, but Hireshmont racks up surpluses he can use to shift around moneys however he wants. And I do this very aggressively, allowing me to move money very easily.

The zero-tax on temples means the only way for me to get a big surplus for religions is to actually give them cash they get to keep. Meaning I can never get net positive transactions (except for monthly account balance changes, but those are practically meaningless in most cases). Taxing temples will simultaneously raise major new overhead, decrease the possibility of large religions and temples prospering, and make financial tricks much easier for clever lords.

I'm not 100% sure about this, but I would suspect that using taxes in order to establish a giant surplus with the guild/religion in this way is unintended.  Just a personal opinion but I would think it is close to violating this

"No powergaming. If the only reason you do something is game-mechanics, you should probably not do it. No declarations of war if you don't actually intend to fight, for example. No "assassinate me so the bounty stays within our realm", etc."

[Geronus]

Which is VERY medievally correct. Religions should be heavily advantaged (or have the possibility of a heavy advantage) in the financial markets, if we want to be even remotely Medieval.

Amen to this. How do you think the Catholic Church became so wealthy? Religions have been tax exempt throughout western history. If you control a religion to the extent that you feel safe storing your money in it, you deserve it, as you're probably a relatively high ranking member. It's not like religions are easy to create and maintain. And I have yet to hear that someone has created a religion for the sole purpose of storing money, without any effort at developing it or propagating it. Now THAT would be power gaming.

One point that I feel has not been raised yet - what exactly is so bad about people using guilds and religions to evade taxes in the first place? Is there a contention that this somehow hurts the game? If so, I fail to see how. I do not understand why subjecting all money everywhere to taxes is so important. Tax evasion is as old as taxes and a time honored tradition of privileged classes everywhere, not least in medieval Europe.

[Norrel]

I don't even see why religions need to drain cash in general, the catholic church made tons of cash off of tithes and stuff like that from the masses.

[De-Legro]

I don't even see why religions need to drain cash in general, the catholic church made tons of cash off of tithes and stuff like that from the masses.

The income from the masses was probably quite marginal, the income from the Nobility in tithes, dispensations (funny how you could divorce if you had the gold) and bequests was substantial. Once you had that income, and you factor in that their own commercial holdings were tax free in many countries, and you had a real wealth machine, but that is the key that BM doesn't have, The Catholic Church had the ability to develop income streams and hold real profitable land, religions in BM cannot.

[Perth]

I'm all for conflict, and lords who decide they want to tax the religions is all well and fun.

What I'm not for is making it impossible for religions to strongarm lords into making them exempt from taxes without requiring a non-trivial amount of work.  After many years of painful experience, things in the game that require large numbers of people to do something once a week (or once a month) don't happen.  They just don't.  People get sick of it, or forget, or don't make it back to their regions.

An option to tax temples = awesome.  Forcing people to tax temples = painful.

Agreed.

Forced taxation of religions will only make having successful religions harder to have in the game. There are enough difficulties in maintaining religions and temples as is. This is really not a good idea, IMO.

[Chenier]

The income from the masses was probably quite marginal, the income from the Nobility in tithes, dispensations (funny how you could divorce if you had the gold) and bequests was substantial. Once you had that income, and you factor in that their own commercial holdings were tax free in many countries, and you had a real wealth machine, but that is the key that BM doesn't have, The Catholic Church had the ability to develop income streams and hold real profitable land, religions in BM cannot.

You shouldn't discredit the taxes of the masses, imo. After all, how did the nobles become rich? By taxing these very same masses. Per head, they contribute a lot less... but since they are so many more than the nobles, it kinda balances.

[De-Legro]

You shouldn't discredit the taxes of the masses, imo. After all, how did the nobles become rich? By taxing these very same masses. Per head, they contribute a lot less... but since they are so many more than the nobles, it kinda balances.

Actually they became rich by requiring them to labourer on the nobles fields in order to secure access to their own fields. Peasant and the masses having any income that was actually taxable only occurred later in the medieval period. Most the masses were subsistence living. Remember part of the reason for the feudal system was that a true cash economy wasn't really in existence.