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.
Contents
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 for shoppes, stalls, forts, and palaces
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).
| Shoppe | Deluxe stall | Medium stall | Small stall | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| Tailor | 6,750 | 5,500 | 4,250 | 3,000 |
| Iron monger | 1,750 | 1,500 | 1,250 | 1,000 |
| Shipyard | 6,750 | 5,500 | 4,196 | 2,891 |
| Distillery | 1,750 | 1,500 | 1,300 | 1,000 |
| Weavery | 3,625 | 3,000 | 2,375 | 1,750 |
| Apothecary | 3,625 | 3,000 | 2,500 | 2,000 |
| Furnisher | 6,750 | 5,500 | 4,167 | 3,000 |
| Fort / Palace | 5,500 |
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, click on the "island" tab of the sun menu, then click the "colonized islands" button. A list with information about all colonized islands, which lists the property tax rate of each island.
Tax baseline for attractions
| Base tax | |
|---|---|
| Explorers' hall | 5,000 |
| Trading post | 3,000 |
| Black market | 3,000 |
Property taxes on attractions appear to be calculated differently than other buildings, but the specifics are not yet known.
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. Items are only shown in the tax rate list if they are used in recipes. The tax rate list is the amount of tax charged on an ingredient when it is used by shoppes, so if they're not used, they won't show as there is no tax charged for them as an ingredient.
| Cerulean | Emerald | Ice | Jade | Meridian | Obsidian | Opal |
|---|---|---|---|---|---|---|
Historical notes
Before Release 2004-07-09 sales tax was calculated in a different way.
Release 2005-02-11 changed the way property taxes (rents) were calculated.
In Release 2011-03-22, the base rents on attractions were reduced by 50%.
In Release 2014-02-05, the base rents on attractions were further reduced, from 15,000 PoE/week to 5,000 PoE/week for explorers' halls and from 10,000 PoE/week to 3,000 PoE/week for black markets and trading posts.
Prior to release 2017-04-04, the tax rates were hidden and could only be calculated by looking at rates for new stalls.
See also
- Spanish article: Impuesto_base
- Economy
External/other links
- Commonly discussed ideas about Taxing finished commodities only from Game Design
- Mantid's Rent tool Rent price comparison tool, with up to date tax rates on every island
