Taxes, the Imperium, and You!

[ottarrus]

In another thread, support for the Imperial Navy came up. How is is paid for was the thrust of the question.

With the Imperium ruling between the worlds, that strongly implies that they have to get their funding the same way. Imperial shipbuilding and maintenance, the Imperial Army and Marines, the Imperial bureaucracy, nobles skimming their share, and more besides needs to be paid for.

If the taxes must be on trade, how much would that be since the Imperium wants to promote trade? Maybe they want to promote trade because that is the income source.

IMTU, I set the taxes for purchasing trade goods as 2% to the Imperium and 1% to the world, but on reflection that is probably woefully inadequate.

What are your thoughts on funding the Imperium? How much? Where from? Etc.

Replying to the OP here.

IMTU the Imperium itself doesn't tax individual citizens. The Imperium taxes trade, interstellar corporations and worlds. The member worlds may impose an income or sales tax on citizens, but that's a local matter entirely.

As for exactly how much the Imperium takes in per annum, I have no idea. However much it is, it is enough to cover the Imperium's expenses.
I don't really think that this is an important statistic in any event. Nobody wants to play a game of 'Auditors and Accountants' anyway. Taxes on cargoes are probably low [say 1-2% of the cargo's value], taxes on interstellar corporations are probably medium to high [5-7%], and the individual worlds bear most of the burden at probably 10% [in addition to troop levies and other requirements]. When compared to other milieux, this is at the low end of medium taxation [between Star Trek's 'we wave the magic replicator at it and *poof!* all our needs are met' and WH40K 'we take make you tithe 90%'].

The one single thing we know about the top limit of the Imperial budget is this: The Imperium cannot afford to field an entire Sector Fleet with 16 battle squadrons TL 15 Tigress class dreadnoughts. Many, perhaps most, IN battle squadrons are older model /early build TL 15 battleships filled out with some even older TL 14 models that have been upgraded to TL 15 electronics. And these squadrons equip even high threat Sector Fleets like the Spinward Marches Fleet, the Sol Fleet and the vital Corridor Fleet.

 

[Terry Mixon]

Replying to the OP here.

IMTU the Imperium itself doesn't tax individual citizens. The Imperium taxes trade, interstellar corporations and worlds. The member worlds may impose an income or sales tax on citizens, but that's a local matter entirely.

As for exactly how much the Imperium takes in per annum, I have no idea. However much it is, it is enough to cover the Imperium's expenses.
I don't really think that this is an important statistic in any event. Nobody wants to play a game of 'Auditors and Accountants' anyway. Taxes on cargoes are probably low [say 1-2% of the cargo's value], taxes on interstellar corporations are probably medium to high [5-7%], and the individual worlds bear most of the burden at probably 10% [in addition to troop levies and other requirements]. When compared to other milieux, this is at the low end of medium taxation [between Star Trek's 'we wave the magic replicator at it and *poof!* all our needs are met' and WH40K 'we take make you tithe 90%'].

The one single thing we know about the top limit of the Imperial budget is this: The Imperium cannot afford to field an entire Sector Fleet with 16 battle squadrons TL 15 Tigress class dreadnoughts. Many, perhaps most, IN battle squadrons are older model /early build TL 15 battleships filled out with some even older TL 14 model that have been upgraded to TL 15 electronics. And these squadrons equip even high threat Sector Fleets like the Spinward Marches Fleet, the Sol Fleet and the vital Corridor Fleet.

Makes sense. Thanks.

 

[collins355]

Chris Thrash did a detailed analysis of the size and costs of the Imperial military. I know some quibble with it, but I haven't seen anything else approaching this level of detal.

Military Forces and Spending in Classic Traveller

 

[phavoc]

Chris Thrash did a detailed analysis of the size and costs of the Imperial military. I know some quibble with it, but I haven't seen anything else approaching this level of detal.

Military Forces and Spending in Classic Traveller

I had not seen that before, so thanks for sharing.

It's an interesting breakdown. I was looking through his analysis and didn't see much, if any, assumptions made on the breakdown of the allocation. He covered ships and troops, but didn't see anything related to the other part of the equation - how much is used to pay for the infrastructure required to keep the ships and troops operational. Boring things like bases, maintenance, fuel, munitions, etc. This gets back to the aphorism by General Pershing in WW1 in reference to the American Expeditionary Forces deployed to France - "Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars".

The mix of the different levels of forces would naturally also lend itself to a duplication of bases, munitions and other things. In some cases this could be advantageous as having duplicative supply chains and infrastructure means a more potentially robust capability to take losses without impact to functions. But, since wars are few and far between, it means your precious budget credits are also wasted due to duplicative efforts.

This is really more of an academic exercise as it's all postulating from the bleachers. Still, that's kinda what the boards are for I suppose - lots of (ideally, informed!) postulating!

 

[ottarrus]

I had not seen that before, so thanks for sharing.

It's an interesting breakdown. I was looking through his analysis and didn't see much, if any, assumptions made on the breakdown of the allocation. He covered ships and troops, but didn't see anything related to the other part of the equation - how much is used to pay for the infrastructure required to keep the ships and troops operational. Boring things like bases, maintenance, fuel, munitions, etc. This gets back to the aphorism by General Pershing in WW1 in reference to the American Expeditionary Forces deployed to France - "Infantry wins battles, logistics wins wars".

The mix of the different levels of forces would naturally also lend itself to a duplication of bases, munitions and other things. In some cases this could be advantageous as having duplicative supply chains and infrastructure means a more potentially robust capability to take losses without impact to functions. But, since wars are few and far between, it means your precious budget credits are also wasted due to duplicative efforts.

This is really more of an academic exercise as it's all postulating from the bleachers. Still, that's kinda what the boards are for I suppose - lots of (ideally, informed!) postulating!

Amateurs study tactics, professionals study logistics.

Over on the RuneQuest boards there was a discussion about the effect of magic on logistics. Now, RQ doesn't have a 'create food and water' spell. There are some fairly high speed /low drag magical effects, but nothing quite so... 'hand wavey', I guess... as DnD. But even with magic roads, spells that hurry wagons, and so forth, it all came down to the daily miles /klicks per day of an oxen team and just how well the local military commander can police the roads AND the troops. Why the troops? Because nothing reduces your depot stocks like sticky fingered warriors [and I use 'warriors' on purpose... warriors don't have the discipline and training of soldiers or marines] raiding every single ration box that passes by.

And for probably bajillionth time, I'd like to refer everyone to GT Ground Forces because it actually acknowledges the importance of Support units in a Third Imperium context. The average Marine can status check his BD can, but it takes a school-trained MOS assigned Battle Dress Technician repair or replace Tech Manual IN-25734-20, Item 54: Right Locomotive Appendage Gyroscopic Subassembly w/ Power Leads.

 

[rinku]

I still think the Empire would mostly be its own economy. Yeah, of course taxes and duties. Why not get pin money where you can? But that's going to be minor compared to a high stellar Navy that has no reason NOT to be self-sufficient from automated factory vessels and shipyards. Simple military pragmatism would dictate setting up in-house rock-to-ship and gas-to-fuel supply lines, although the MegaCorporations are a resource to be used as well when practical, especially if they develop some advance.