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.

 

[actionman]

I still think the Empire would mostly be its own economy.

Something like state capitalism?

 

[rinku]

Something new, I think. It requires essentially no-labour, self perpetuating capital, which it's clear that high stellar tech levels have in abundance. Even if self-aware AI is not used, human directed, autonomous machines will be. And the society has had thousands of years - hundreds of generations - to sort it all out.

 

[ottarrus]

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.

Well, YTU is whatever you say it is [and more power to you].
But every source going back to 1977 says that the megacorporations are the primary suppliers of a host of Imperial activities, from military procurement to privatized governmental services to the citizenry. In many respects, the Imperium runs rather like the classic Soviet troika... the three legs being the Government [incl. Nobles], the Military, and the Megacorps [with considerable crossing of the streams].
And the problem with a top-down demand economy is that the level of corruption is increased while the quality of the good produced is severely decreased. And again I point you to the lousy quality of goods produced by top-down demand economies since 1917.
You'll note I am not using the words 'Communist' or 'Socialist' here. I am not talking about the theories of government, I'm talking about the real-world effects of an economic model.

 

[Endie]

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

It’s detailed but a bit mad, even if you leave aside nonsensical stuff like “This works out to an army budget of between 10 and 150 billion credits, averaging 3 billion credits”.

He states that the average imperium world maintains north of 800,000 troops, and spends 1-3% of GWP on defence.

The average imperium world hasn’t seen an external threat in half a millenium. It’s like a European country saying “I know we’ve not been threatened with war since the Reformation in 1520 but let’s not let our guard drop!”

In reality, we Europeans started on the peace dividend schtick within months of the fall of the Soviet Union and within a few years the Germans literally had troops carrying broomsticks and shouting “bang”.

Edit: I cannot stress enough that the Germans really did that.

 

[ottarrus]

It’s detailed but a bit mad, even if you leave aside nonsensical stuff like “This works out to an army budget of between 10 and 150 billion credits, averaging 3 billion credits”.

He states that the average imperium world maintains north of 800,000 troops, and spends 1-3% of GWP on defence.

The average imperium world hasn’t seen an external threat in half a millenium. It’s like a European country saying “I know we’ve not been threatened with war since the Reformation in 1520 but let’s not let our guard drop!”

In reality, we Europeans started on the peace dividend schtick within months of the fall of the Soviet Union and within a few years the Germans literally had troops carrying broomsticks and shouting “bang”.

You make good points here, but let's not forget that the Imperium levies worlds [especially high-pop /high-tech worlds] for troops for the Unified Armies that fill out the subsector roster. And this is on top of the local System Squadron [which most systems need just to police their in-system spaceways] and their own local defense.
Another factor is that the Imperium allows limited warfare between member worlds and that will require home defense forces even in interior sectors like Gushemege or Fornost. However, we also know that many worlds avoid or cannot financially support adequate local defense forces because there is a market for mercenaries pretty much everywhere.

 

[Endie]

You make good points here, but let's not forget that the Imperium levies worlds [especially high-pop /high-tech worlds] for troops for the Unified Armies that fill out the subsector roster. And this is on top of the local System Squadron [which most systems need just to police their in-system spaceways] and their own local defense.
Another factor is that the Imperium allows limited warfare between member worlds and that will require home defense forces even in interior sectors like Gushemege or Fornost. However, we also know that many worlds avoid or cannot financially support adequate local defense forces because there is a market for mercenaries pretty much everywhere.

On the imperium-mandated level I totally agree. I’ve posted already (with figures from the WBH, TCS and Pocket Empires) about how they are swimming in a sea of money that current ship costs and soldier salaries cannot hope to absorb! But no way are worlds in Dagudashaag funding the best part of a million soldiers through sheer force of habit.

 

[ottarrus]

On the imperium-mandated level I totally agree. I’ve posted already (with figures from the WBH, TCS and Pocket Empires) about how they are swimming in a sea of money that current ship costs and soldier salaries cannot hope to absorb! But no way are worlds in Dagudashaag funding the best part of a million soldiers through sheer force of habit.

That really depends on the world, Endie. A high-pop world can do it easily. A high-tech /high-pop world can do it easier still.
And, of course, it depends on the troops' equipment, tech level, and training. A leg infantry battalion at TL 10 is a helluva lot cheaper to field than a TL 10 grav tank battalion that's trained to be loaded aboard transports within 24 hours of the 'Go' order.
As for worlds in the interior of the Imperium needing a lot of troops, just look at the tensions in Core Sector from the Third Imperium book. There's the beginnings of a Chanastin Kingdom resurgence that has four whole subsectors on edge right next Core Subsector itself... and with damned few Naval bases in the Sylean Cultural Region too.
And it appears that just about every sector of the Imperium has some kind of political tension of this sort within the local region.

 

[Condottiere]

Depends on actually the form of military force that needs to be deployed.

Total war would have access to trillions of conscripts.

Converting the industrial base to support them, might require quite a while.

 

[Endie]

That really depends on the world, Endie. A high-pop world can do it easily. A high-tech /high-pop world can do it easier still.
And, of course, it depends on the troops' equipment, tech level, and training. A leg infantry battalion at TL 10 is a helluva lot cheaper to field than a TL 10 grav tank battalion that's trained to be loaded aboard transports within 24 hours of the 'Go' order.
As for worlds in the interior of the Imperium needing a lot of troops, just look at the tensions in Core Sector from the Third Imperium book. There's the beginnings of a Chanastin Kingdom resurgence that has four whole subsectors on edge right next Core Subsector itself... and with damned few Naval bases in the Sylean Cultural Region too.
And it appears that just about every sector of the Imperium has some kind of political tension of this sort within the local region.

But surely nothing that can threaten neighbouring systems enough to have them raise the taxes needed to maintain million-man armies when there are unused Tigresses looking for stuff to interdict in the subsector!