why use lower tax in place of high tax when approval is at maximum?

If your approval is at 100%, there is no reason whatsoever to drop taxes lower.

I guess that what they may be saying is that you're better off going for less morale buildings and more economy buildings, thus forcing you to go for a lower tax rate in order to keep approval up?

I also can get 100% approval with 80% tax rate in 1.31.
However, the population that will support this is much lower in 1.31 vs 1.2.
I do believe it is still the best strategy.
However, it does require having some morale and economic resources to support what I would consider a good level of production.
I think a 69% tax rate with 100% approval would rake in more tax money because of the higher populations supported.
Don't know about the lower tax rates, would have to do some experimenting.

I think the population would be happy at any tax rate that gives them good value for their taxes paid. I can think of all sorts of benefits one could give the masses -- free food, free and safe transportation, free housing, clean water and air, etc....( I'll leave the more colorful benefits to your imagination ).

Also if there are really a difference between approval and "happiness"?

I can see where there could be a huge difference between approving of someone's leadership and being happy oneself.
For instance in a time of war I might approve of and faithfully follow a leader even though I personally am unhappy and motivated by revenge and hatred.

I would say that the lower tax rate, for the same number of morale improvements will support a larger population. This may be of advantage to increase either your influence and trade income, or allow you to build larger invasion fleets for an initial assault on an enemy.

It seems to be a matter of preference based on the player's style. The geeks among us could better quantify the income difference between 80% tax with lower population versus 40% tax with higher population.

My own preference is to set a max 49% tax rate because I am morally opposed to abusing my loyal subjects with excessively high taxes.

It seems to be a matter of preference based on the player's style. The geeks among us could better quantify the income difference between 80% tax with lower population versus 40% tax with higher population.

Income is based on the square root of the population. To make up for cutting the tax rate in half you would have multiply the population by 4. With the complexity (and non-linearity) of the morale equation, I don't know how to precisely quantify the income difference. Clearly, you won't be able to raise population by anywhere near a factor of four. I'd estimate that halving your tax rate would probably result in about a 45% loss in tax revenue (isn't this reverse voodoo economics?).

Your moral stance is a pretty expensive proposition.

I understand that by lowering the tax there would be two situations: 1) Would require less morale buildings and build more Stock Markets and finally have higher income or 2) Increase Maximum population (with farms) and finally higher tax income.

I always use situation 1. Because I always limited my planet to maximum of 17 billion people, as keeping people happy up to 25 billion people (capped for maximum decrease in morality) is too expensive because of spending a lot of morale building. Instead I built Stock Markets.

Before any of you begin to attack me with advantages of a very high population, I will say that I understand the benefit of ultrahigh population because of: higher influence; more "human" resource for war; higher tax income and so on. But as Mumblefratz have stated that the tax income is just a squareroot of the population, the income from Stock Markets that replaced the Morale Buildings at population of 17 billion is just much much more than tax income from ultrahigh population. Thus with only a few Virtual Reality Center, I can tax the population at 80% and I can built much more Stock Markets and other buildings such as learning centres.

Would I want to increase my influence and trade income (statement by Tertullian) I simply built starbases!

Cheers!

I assumed that the comments about a 40-50% tax rate being best were based on a preception of reality. Could you imagine a civilization that was content while the government taxed 80% of the peoples income?
can you imagine looking at YOUR pay check and saying "lets see here, $100 for me and $400 for the state... yah, I'm cool with that!"

It's clear the game does not work on the same tax principals that we live under. I'm cool with that, it is just a game after all. I just move the decimal point over one space in my head any way, so I read it not as an 80% tax rate, but an 8% rate. Personally I think an 8% effective tax rate would make for a very happy populace.

Income is based on the square root of the population. To make up for cutting the tax rate in half you would have multiply the population by 4. With the complexity (and non-linearity) of the morale equation, I don't know how to precisely quantify the income difference. Clearly, you won't be able to raise population by anywhere near a factor of four. I'd estimate that halving your tax rate would probably result in about a 45% loss in tax revenue (isn't this reverse voodoo economics?).

This is true, but the ultimate goal is to maximize *production*, not income. And by production I mean both direct and indirect. For example, excess money can be used to rush buy, but typically a stockmarket is the equivalent of only about 3 hammers (although on the plus side you get instant gratification!) Under the old rules I'd have said without any doubt 80% tax was the way to maximize this overall "production". In 1.31, it's still what I'll go for, but I'm no longer certain its the best configuration.

If you use tech trading frequently, you can get much closer to 1-1 bang for your buck so this would shift the balance much closer to the 80% rate (if it isn't there already).

can you imagine looking at YOUR pay check and saying "lets see here, $100 for me and $400 for the state... yah, I'm cool with that!"

What if you'd never known any differently? What if the state actually provided *good* services? Free and oustanding healthcare, reliable and regular public transport, crime control so effective that robberies are actually *news*, free luxury accommodation etc, etc?

Why do you accept your current tax rate as fair (or perhaps more likely, why do you accept is as only slightly onerous )? Is it because that's inherently the truth, or merely because it's what you're used to?

I think most likely people would accept almost any level of taxation. It's just sharp changes that would cause problems.

random50 claims the ultimate goal is to maximize *production*.

I respectfully disagree. The ultimate goal is to enjoy the game!!! For some, this means getting the highest Metaverse scores, for others to successfully run an empire according to your whims and passions of the moment. I understand and agree though with what you mean, random50.

That is one of the great beauties of this game--each person can obtain gratification and satisfaction according to their own goals.

I think what's really missing is the negative effect taxes generally have on an economy.

I'm not saying to turn the game into sim city... But some kind of simple economic model could be used where taxes, morale and growth rates help determine what your tax income is.

(I say growth rates, because our current economy only functions on constant growth. A planet with a maxed out population would probably not fair well since business growth would be going somewhere else...)

random50 claims the ultimate goal is to maximize *production*. I respectfully disagree. The ultimate goal is to enjoy the game!!!

Where's the fun in that?!

Oh, err...

(random50, anal retentive extraordinaire )

I think what's really missing is the negative effect taxes generally have on an economy. I'm not saying to turn the game into sim city... But some kind of simple economic model could be used where taxes, morale and growth rates help determine what your tax income is.

Is this not already implemented? I mean seriously, look at the tax issue. The higher the taxes, the lower the moral, unless offset by natural/race abilities. This being said, if the high taxes are not offset by moral, population growth will decrease, or potentially drop depending on the moral level. This resulting decline in the population, results in lower tax income.

Growth rates can be interpreted as follows.

1: population growth. It varies directly with moral that is affected by taxes and other issues. The happier you keep your population, the faster it will grow the population base, as well as tax income.

2: government spending, that is, what you are spending to develop your worlds. This investment is considered growth, as you are adding capacity to the economy, generating revenue, and attracting new citizens.

3: The growth rate of technology. This is along the lines of growth via investment (construction, development). As your economy progresses technologically, it improves in multiple areas. Look at the developments you research, you gradually gain better moral, economic, and production capability. I do not refer to the actual buildings you build, but the technologies that present a +10 to economy, or +10 to social/military production, etc, etc, etc.

To my mind, GCII does indeed have a simple economic model implemented into its design. It may not directly (AFAIK) be based on actual models such as the Solow Growth Model, or other Keynesian and Classical theories of economic growth, yet for the purpose intended, it does a fine job.

Remember, these guys (Stardock) are game programmers, and not necessarily economists. Sure, it would be nice to see a better developed, and more integrated economy, however then you will get into a game of “Sim Economy”, rather than Sim Take-Over-The-Galaxy.

Just my $2.75

Interesting issue about economics   

The main goal is of course to enjoy to game! Maximazing the production is logical. But if you have already fully built planet far away from enemy territories (fully save) I would rebuilt these planets in economic and research planet. Production of ships I don't care anymore by these planets...

I agree that the impact of tax was already implented on morality. I find it rather sad that the impact of population on the "base morality" is much, much greater than the tax... This inhibits the exploitment of huge populations greatly!