Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

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BronxFury
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Tax on Shops at Whidershin/Mayfield's Tavern

Post by BronxFury » Sun Jul 18, 2021 6:59 pm

Description: The two shops within the Whidershin/Mayfield's Tavern are suddenly paying a 10% tax on all sales. There shouldn't be any settlement tax, as it's not part of a settlement.

Expected Result: There should be no taxes paid from these two shops, other than if they are set up to give a percentage to a Faction, which they are not.

Actual Result: 10% tax being charged on all transactions in both shops.
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KT28
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Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by KT28 » Sun Jul 18, 2021 8:25 pm

Description
-----------------------
My character owns one of the shops in front of the Red Tower in Greyport. The placard on the shop says that settlement taxes are 10%, but sales on the shop are being charged almost double that, at 19%.


Steps to reproduce
-----------------------
Checked with one other shop owner in the same Red Tower cluster and they are seeing the same thing.

Expected result
-----------------------
Tax rate should match the reported tax rate on the placard (currently 10%).


Actual result
-------------------
Tax rate is being charged as 19%


Screenshot(s)
--------------------

Image

Image

You can see in this screenshot, for example, a Cold 5/- Essence is priced at 10,000. The tax should be 1,000. But in the following screenshot, 1900 is removed as taxes.

Image

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Re: Tax on Shops at Whidershin/Mayfield's Tavern

Post by Definately Not A Mimic » Mon Jul 19, 2021 12:07 pm

I could be mistaken but I think you're paying a tax to the landlord, tavern owner, for having a stall in their establishment. I believe that came with the guild house updates.

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Re: Tax on Shops at Whidershin/Mayfield's Tavern

Post by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia » Mon Jul 19, 2021 2:52 pm

Definately Not A Mimic wrote:
Mon Jul 19, 2021 12:07 pm
I could be mistaken but I think you're paying a tax to the landlord, tavern owner, for having a stall in their establishment. I believe that came with the guild house updates.
This is correct. That said, should add that information to the shop sign so it's not so mysterious. Technically not a bug, but I'll keep this thread open until I've done that anyway.

Done.


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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia » Mon Jul 19, 2021 6:46 pm

Tracked this down. There's... Some notification that the shops are associated with a property, but it's really not very informative at all. Update to sign text is in the pipeline that will actually clearly state the behavior.

Done.


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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by Flower Power » Mon Jul 19, 2021 7:36 pm

Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia wrote:
Mon Jul 19, 2021 6:46 pm
Tracked this down. There's... Some notification that the shops are associated with a property, but it's really not very informative at all. Update to sign text is in the pipeline that will actually clearly state the behavior.
Can the guildhouse owner set the tax rate applied to shops within their guildhouse, or is it always going to be a flat 10%?

Just asking because an additional 10% tax, ontop of (since most guildhouses are in cities) whatever the local tax is (typically a combined 18-20% tax rate) can make it difficult to produce a reasonable profit for a variety of different businesses - especially wand/scroll/potion stalls, which happen to be the third most common form of player shop just after "haha bog standard runic mats, lol" shops and "idk this is random stuff i found" stalls - and it sounds like a real big inconvenience for the guildhouse owner to have to keep track of who made what when to give kickbacks to friends and business partners.
what would fred rogers do?

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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia » Mon Jul 19, 2021 10:07 pm

Flower Power wrote:
Mon Jul 19, 2021 7:36 pm
Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia wrote:
Mon Jul 19, 2021 6:46 pm
Tracked this down. There's... Some notification that the shops are associated with a property, but it's really not very informative at all. Update to sign text is in the pipeline that will actually clearly state the behavior.
Can the guildhouse owner set the tax rate applied to shops within their guildhouse, or is it always going to be a flat 10%?

Just asking because an additional 10% tax, ontop of (since most guildhouses are in cities) whatever the local tax is (typically a combined 18-20% tax rate) can make it difficult to produce a reasonable profit for a variety of different businesses - especially wand/scroll/potion stalls, which happen to be the third most common form of player shop just after "haha bog standard runic mats, lol" shops and "idk this is random stuff i found" stalls - and it sounds like a real big inconvenience for the guildhouse owner to have to keep track of who made what when to give kickbacks to friends and business partners.
It's a flat 10%, but really only because 10% is a tax value default in quite a few places. I pulled the current avg/median settlement tax rates and yeah, it does look like it's around 18-19% for GH shops in cities... But, implementing per-shop controls on guildhouse-associated tax rates would entail some futzing about in the database which wouldn't really be a quick feature to sketch out and set loose. Something for when I can make the time for it? Sure, I like corruption and kickbacks.

In the meanwhile, short-term... Let me do some thinking on this. Maybe if a guildhouse-associated shop is located within a settlement, it will default to a 5% GH tax rate instead of 10%, so at least there's not so much pressure on merchants in cities. (At least, not so much pressure due to flat mechanics. Pressure because you got on the wrong side of your local landowner... that's more interesting.)

Done.


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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by Bunnysmack » Tue Jul 20, 2021 4:22 am

Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia wrote:
Mon Jul 19, 2021 10:07 pm
Flower Power wrote:
Mon Jul 19, 2021 7:36 pm
Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia wrote:
Mon Jul 19, 2021 6:46 pm
Tracked this down. There's... Some notification that the shops are associated with a property, but it's really not very informative at all. Update to sign text is in the pipeline that will actually clearly state the behavior.
Can the guildhouse owner set the tax rate applied to shops within their guildhouse, or is it always going to be a flat 10%?

Just asking because an additional 10% tax, ontop of (since most guildhouses are in cities) whatever the local tax is (typically a combined 18-20% tax rate) can make it difficult to produce a reasonable profit for a variety of different businesses - especially wand/scroll/potion stalls, which happen to be the third most common form of player shop just after "haha bog standard runic mats, lol" shops and "idk this is random stuff i found" stalls - and it sounds like a real big inconvenience for the guildhouse owner to have to keep track of who made what when to give kickbacks to friends and business partners.
It's a flat 10%, but really only because 10% is a tax value default in quite a few places. I pulled the current avg/median settlement tax rates and yeah, it does look like it's around 18-19% for GH shops in cities... But, implementing per-shop controls on guildhouse-associated tax rates would entail some futzing about in the database which wouldn't really be a quick feature to sketch out and set loose. Something for when I can make the time for it? Sure, I like corruption and kickbacks.

In the meanwhile, short-term... Let me do some thinking on this. Maybe if a guildhouse-associated shop is located within a settlement, it will default to a 5% GH tax rate instead of 10%, so at least there's not so much pressure on merchants in cities. (At least, not so much pressure due to flat mechanics. Pressure because you got on the wrong side of your local landowner... that's more interesting.)
As the the landlord of the Mayfield's Tavern, I can attest that tax revenue is definitely not coming to me. In fact, I haven't even received rent from the quarters in the building for the last three in game months. Here is a screen shot of my most recent player bank account transfer: Image

I think for Mayfield's, some reset must have once again mistakenly labeled one of the upstairs quarters as the ones to receive taxes and rent.
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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by Zan » Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:46 am

Perhaps add Tax control to the Guildhouse Management option for the owner? So that the tax rate is controllable by the Landlord? Opens up the opportunity to lower or rate taxes to attract / dissuade tenants into those shops?
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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by Definately Not A Mimic » Wed Jul 21, 2021 1:08 pm

I don't think the taxes to the landlord go in your account as a transfer. I think they go in like a sale from a shop or the taxes of your own house coming out. The amount just changes.

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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by KT28 » Wed Jul 21, 2021 2:33 pm

Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia wrote:
Mon Jul 19, 2021 10:07 pm
In the meanwhile, short-term... Let me do some thinking on this. Maybe if a guildhouse-associated shop is located within a settlement, it will default to a 5% GH tax rate instead of 10%, so at least there's not so much pressure on merchants in cities. (At least, not so much pressure due to flat mechanics. Pressure because you got on the wrong side of your local landowner... that's more interesting.)
I humbly suggest that if a shop is within a guildhouse within a settlement, the settlement's tax rate could be split in two halves (for example, if Greyport's taxes are 10%, then for a guildhouse shop the taxes are 5% to Greyport, 5% to the Red Tower). My reasoning is simply that any total tax rate over 10% makes these shops extremely undesirable. Most serious merchants are going to be looking immediately for another stall and/or won't invest too much in this shopfront.

Generally speaking desirable shops get more investment and care from their owners, which means more sales overall, which means both Greyport and the Red Tower may end up paradoxically with more tax income and higher quality stock with a lower tax rate. I don't have any data to back this up obviously, but anecdotally and speaking from my own character's experience at least, when my character realized how high the tax rate it made more financial sense to pull all his stock and find another shopfront than eat a 19% paycut.

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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by Party in the forest at midnight » Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:33 pm

I don't even sell at temp stalls if I see the tax rate at 10%, I take my goods elsewhere to somewhere more reasonable.

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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia » Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:37 pm

Yeah, I'm mulling over a few different potential solutions here, the thoughts are appreciated. I'll be looking to pull the trigger on something this weekend I expect.

EDIT: So there had been a bug with this before, but I was incorrect about the intended behavior! There should/will be no doubling up of city + guildhouse taxes at all! I'll bump this post one more time once fix is out (should be tonight) with details on the mechanic, and will also update the wiki.

My bad folks!

Done.


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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by KT28 » Thu Jul 22, 2021 3:27 am

Woohoo, thank you Bat! Appreciate you hopping into fixing this so quickly.

This is not related exactly to the current topic, but while we're on the topic of taxes... I very much agree with the following quote:
Party in the forest at midnight wrote:
Wed Jul 21, 2021 4:33 pm
I don't even sell at temp stalls if I see the tax rate at 10%, I take my goods elsewhere to somewhere more reasonable.
I don't know if y'all would ever consider removing all taxes entirely from temp shops? I've always seen temp shops as a convenient alternative for merchant RP as opposed to just dumping all your goods on the ground and hoping they don't get stolen. Temporary shops don't have the convenience of being available around the clock like non-temp shops do, so in order to manage a temp shop you really have to put some legwork in. It's always seemed strange to me that these shops get taxed the exact same as their far-superior, much less labor intensive counterparts when they are pretty much akin to a table to lay all your stuff onto. The disparity in earning potential between perm-shop-owning characters and non-perm-shop owning characters is already massive.

I apologize this is definitely getting into suggestion territory (taxes are just rough)

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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia » Thu Jul 22, 2021 3:45 pm

Got caught up in-game last night but fix is written for this- not sure if it'll be live in time for next reset, but definitely the one after that.

Shops that have a Guildhouse/Quarter that they're parented under will now have a flat 8% tax rate (a hair below the current median and average settlement tax rates), and will no longer be subject to any city taxes. The Guildhouse owner can evict shops under the Guildhouse, but City officials can't. In the future, I intend to make this configurable, but it's not a quick thing to whip up and I'll need to set the time aside to do so.

The principle behind the tax behavior (not paying city taxes), and I will be paraphrasing Irongron's clarification to me, is that Guildhouses are extremely expensive and therefore pay out huge amounts of taxes to their parent settlement. And, any shops associated with the Guildhouse will be paying taxes to the Guildhouse, not to the settlement.

The idea here is if you buy a Guildhouse, yeah you're going to have a lot of gold going out the window, but if you run it well you will earn most of that gold back, or maybe even profit.

Unrelated to the above, I have made it so that all temp shops belonging to a city (even an "invisible" city, like the ones in the Hub) will have only a 2% tax rate. If the city tax rate is lower, it will use the city tax rate instead. Any shop that has a timer of 6 RL hours or less counts as a "temp shop" for these purposes.

Done.


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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by KT28 » Fri Jul 23, 2021 1:36 pm

Amazing! Thank you Bat!

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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by BronxFury » Fri Jul 23, 2021 8:48 pm

Thanks for you work on this, Bat. You're great!
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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by Zan » Sat Jul 24, 2021 9:46 am

Thank you!!
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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by cakewalk » Sat Jul 24, 2021 12:12 pm

Woohoo 2% temp shop tax! Thanks! This will be great for merchant RP!

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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by Bunnysmack » Sun Jul 25, 2021 10:28 pm

Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia wrote:
Thu Jul 22, 2021 3:45 pm
Got caught up in-game last night but fix is written for this- not sure if it'll be live in time for next reset, but definitely the one after
Thanks for jumping on this Bat, but quick question: If the guildhall/tavern owner owns one of the shops, do the taxes still go to them on sales?
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Re: Shop being over-taxed 9% too much in Greyport

Post by Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia » Mon Jul 26, 2021 4:26 am

Bunnysmack wrote:
Sun Jul 25, 2021 10:28 pm
Batrachophrenoboocosmomachia wrote:
Thu Jul 22, 2021 3:45 pm
Got caught up in-game last night but fix is written for this- not sure if it'll be live in time for next reset, but definitely the one after
Thanks for jumping on this Bat, but quick question: If the guildhall/tavern owner owns one of the shops, do the taxes still go to them on sales?
Yep - if you own the shop and the guildhall, you'll get the 8% tax and then the 92% remainder both deposited into your account (assuming no faction taxes). I suppose I can clean that up some time so that the sales receipts look tidier.

Done.


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