How tax works#

The server collects tax to keep money circulating and to help fund the government. You don't run any commands for it — tax is applied automatically. This page explains what gets taxed and when, so nothing comes as a surprise.

Personal balance tax#

The money you're holding is taxed a small amount each week. A few things to know:

• It's based on your balance — the more you're sitting on, the more tax applies, and higher balances are taxed at a higher rate.
• It's applied when you log in, prorated by elapsed time since your previous login, including time offline. A longer absence can therefore mean a larger charge.
• Spending and using your money normally is the point — parking a huge balance and never touching it is what the tax gently discourages.

The rates on this server right now. Your whole balance pays the rate of the band it falls in, and the weekly rate is scaled to the time since your last login:

Business tax#

Firms pay a weekly tax on the money in their accounts, on the same idea — larger balances pay more. If you run a business, check where it stands:

/business tax info Acme

That shows the firm's current balance, its tax status, and the estimated weekly amount. Firms can be made tax-exempt by an administrator.

Income tax#

Some kinds of income have a little tax taken at the source as you earn it, rather than later. When that happens it's handled automatically — the amount you receive is already net of the tax. Unlike balance tax, this one is silent — there's no chat message for each deduction (it would be too noisy), but it still shows up in /transactions.

The rate depends on what paid you — each row is the plugin the money came through:

Keeping an eye on it#

• Your own deductions: /transactions (or My finances on the Explorer).
• A firm's: /business transactions Acme.
• The big picture of where tax flows: the Money flow view on the Explorer.

Government revenue by bracket#

Officials can open Government revenue to see personal and corporate balance-tax receipts by exact balance bracket and weekly rate. The table uses the selected accounts and date range. Lower bounds are inclusive and upper bounds are exclusive; the highest bracket has no upper bound.

These are amounts actually received, not estimates. Personal tax is prorated over time, and a corporate bracket is based on the firm's combined taxable balance, even when several accounts pay portions of the tax. Brackets and rates are kept as they were at collection time, including after configuration changes. Older receipts without a recorded exact bracket appear as Bracket unavailable. Preparing history means aggregation is still catching up for the selected period.

Where to go next#

• The flip side — money the government pays out: Salaries.
• How the different accounts hold this money: Accounts & money.