Tax

There are two types of taxes in Puzzle Pirates: property tax (also known as "rent"), which is charged to various buildings; and sales tax, which is charged to products that pirates can buy from stores.

Property tax
Property tax, sometimes referred to as "Rent", is paid by shoppe and stall owners to the fort or palace on a weekly basis. Some of it is lost as a PoE sink, and some goes to the island coffers for use by the governing flag. The tax that goes to the island government is expressed as a percentage of the tax baseline and increases the overall property tax paid. These additional taxes can be as high as 50% (for an island with a fort) or 100% (for a palace). If, for some reason, a colonized island has no fort or palace, only the baseline tax is paid. When taxes are set to 0% by the governor, no PoE is placed into the island coffers. However, if set above 0%, everything above the tax baseline is put into the island coffers.

Tax baseline
The tax baseline is the basic rate at which property taxes are charged (i.e. the rent at an island with 0% additional tax and an island population over 250).

At a population of 250 and below, tax rate decreases linearly from the above values down to 1/4 the above values at zero population. That is, it follows the formula:
 * rent = (0.25 + 0.75 * island_population / 250) * baseline_rent

For example, if the island has a population of 80, the rent for a deluxe iron monger stall would be:
 * (0.25 + 0.75 * 80 / 250) * 1500 = 735 PoE per week.

To determine the tax rate on an island, go into any bazaar on the island, start the "open a stall" process and look to see what the tax on a stall will be. Take this number and divide it by the stall's base line rent. For example, if a deluxe iron monger stall has a rent of 1650 on an island with a population over 250, then the tax rate is 1650/1500 = 1.1 and therefore the tax is 10%.

Note that the game does not always update both the island population and the rent given on the "open a stall" screen at the same time, so pirates may need to try calculating the tax rate several times of an hour or so to be sure of a reasonably accurate tax rate.

Sales tax
Sales tax is paid when using the ordering interface of a shoppe or stall. Dockside transactions are not taxed, but if a manager orders goods from a shop to sell dockside (a common practice for producers of ship consumables), the sales tax is paid at the time the order is placed. Sales tax is calculated by taking the tax value of the goods and labor used in the creation of the product. The governor's tax slider does not affect the calculation of the sales tax. 90% of the sales tax collected is sunk, while the remaining 10% goes to the palace coffers, none of it goes to the shopkeeper.. The amount deposited into the coffers is not recorded in the palace and fort records.

Tax value
Tax value is an element of the sales tax which reflects a standardized price for the tax to be calculated off of. Each commodity (including the three different types of labor) has its own tax value, and the tax cost of a finished product is the sum of the tax values of its ingredients.

The primary effect of this, and the reason the system was changed to be this way, is to make the price of an item the same, no matter where it is produced or purchased from. In particular, this stops shoppekeepers from closing their shoppes to the public, setting the order costs to the minimum, and then ordering goods to sell dockside without paying any sales tax.

The tax values for each commodity is changed dynamically by the system, and drives the dynamic spawn of commodities. The current tax values can be found on the "manage prices" menu of the shoppe management menu or it can be found via yoweb lookups.

Tax values Tax values Tax values Tax values Tax values Tax values
 * valign=top style=" width:16%;"|
 * valign=top style=" width:17%;"|
 * valign=top style=" width:17%;"|
 * valign=top style=" width:17%;"|
 * valign=top style=" width:17%;"|
 * valign=top style=" width:16%;"|
 * }

Historical notes
Before Release 2004-07-09 sales tax was calculated in a different way.

External/other links

 * Commonly discussed ideas about Taxing finished commodities only from Game Design


 * Difference between weekly, island, and labor taxes
 * Utility building taxes
 * Tedv's explanation of the new Property Tax system
 * Dachimpy's Calculator for Island Rent Income and Tax Rates
 * Peghead's post detailing the "tax value" system, and corresponding discussion
 * Ryujin's post with a spreadsheet to reverse compute an island's tax % level