10000 Islands Budget/IMM Payouts

[Grub (Lenlyvit)]

I am not sure how many nations are aware of this, but we have a 10000 Islands Regional Reserve Account that started with 1,000,000 Tacos in December 2007. This account is used for contests, prizes, taking fees for campaign bills, paying gov't workers and most importantly Immigration bonuses.

When we started paying nations for sending out IMM tg's, it was in the time before the Accelerator. Since that time we now have the luxury of using the Accelerator. Because of the ease of using the Accelerator and because of a dwindling Regional Reserve Account, the Council of Nine has voted to cut the IMM payouts from 10 Tacos to 5 Tacos per tg sent out. In three days of voting, this was approved by a vote of 5 votes for, 1 N/A (Minister of Labor) and 3 nations not voting. Sorry for the decrease in payouts, but it's needed.

With the budget, I mentioned that our account started at 1 million Tacos. Because of the large push recently in recruiting, our account dropped from over 500,000 Tacos to around 220,000 Tacos. Because of this dramatic drop, some changes have and will be made.

First off, because our forum doesn't really allow a formal way to really gain revenue except for manually doing so with each nation, we will assume that government of the 10000 Islands will take in through standard taxes and fees, 100,000 tacos per quarter starting with this upcoming quarter. Payments will be made during each Mortimer Report.

On top of that, the Co9 will come up with a budget that will be posted in the Senate Offices once approved.

There are other things we are discussing as well, but if you have any ideas on ways to generate revenue or things you'd like to see in a 10000 Islands Budget, feel free to post in this thread.

Grub

[Anime Daisuki]

I have two ideas to generate revenue:

1. Make nations pay for map requests.
Why are we not doing this? When new nations join 10KI, they get 250 tacos immediately and another 250 tacos for naming the person who recruited them. So they are not exactly pennilness. Also, one requirement for making map requests is that the nation must be registered on the forum for one month. By the end of one month, most are expected to have made a few posts.

At the very least, every nation by the time they are eligible to make map requests, have about 300 tacos. Charging say, 150 tacos for a map request is not unreasonable.


2. Restart the monthly lottery.
Estay used to do the lottery. This could be made into a government venture where you have nations putting in 100 tacos for a ticket. Let's say, the government takes 25 percent of the pot, and award 75 percent to the winner every month. That's one way to get some tacos back into the system.

-AD

[Greek People Nation (GPN)]

If you charge 150 taco per map request. Then we should raise the prices for campaign postings.

[Shizensky]

Can people invest directly in the Regional Reserve? I'm thinking that if we open it to the public a little bit, maybe 15%-20% and let them buy "shares" in it they would feel more involved, and therefore be more likely to find ways to generate revenue for the region. There would probably be an initial buy-in fee so that it immediately influences the RR, and then as the RR goes up or down their share would accordingly. Now if we decide to tax the sale of RR shares, it would probably be wise to make sure the tax percentage is less than the buy-in so that it's still a worthy investment.

Another idea would be reminding people of the advertising options they've got, especially during elections. 2,000 Tacos for a news fader or announcement thread could be pretty tempting for someone trying to reel in the votes. Didn't we bring in like 30,000 for 3 days of WFE campaign advertising once?

Do we still do a rich list? This was the whole reason I even tried to make tacos. If we bring incentives for people to make the tacos, we bring occasions for more money to ptotentially pass through the RR.

Do we tax sales of Immigration Stock?

Has the RR ever considered sponsoring low interest government loans? They could be advertised to help people get their national defense and space programs going, as well as their efforts in the map and colonizations.

Also, how many IMM shares from CTE'd nations are still floating around? I know we're using a lot of these for the 10 Box program, but who actually owns them if not the RR? Could those be sold to boost revenue when the prices climb again?

[Shelter from the Storm]

Taxes!? You want us to pay taxes!!!!! That is the single most outragoes thing I have ever...


Um, I mean, that's probably a good idea...

How about a 5 taco tax on starting a new thread? Or do we not want to put a chilling effect on posting?

Could we have an annual (NS years) income tax on everyone? Say, 2%?

[Petalumadom]

I think if a tax could be made it would be pretty neat and advanced... but it couldn't be on posts and stuff... that would be a real pain unless it was coded (and then you would just get paid less because you make money by posting )

So it would have to come from selling IMM stock or gaining money from mortimer reports... either of which will be annoying for my company... but it would make things more realistic.

[Shizensky]

I think any sort of tax on anything post related would be self defeating. If there ever was to be some sort of tax code, I think it would be best to be largely income based, but post income would be exempt since it's technically a donation of "service" to the region, if you think about it. On that note, income made by recruiters and such probably shouldn't be taxed for the same reason.

I know it's not very government, but what about ol' fashioned fundraisers? I dunno about all of you, but I'd at least be interested in a Taco flavored Girl Scout cookie, only because you can do now wrong with any sort of Girl Scout cookies. Or maybe TITO Scout cookies?

[morlago]

Do we have income tax? Say nations with more than 20000 tacos who are in the map should pay 15% of their income from their industries.

[Shizensky]

As far as the budget goes, what if each of the the gov't divisions, labor, education, immigration and such, had to request a certain amount of funds for a given amount of time, say the next quarter. These tacos would be used by each department to fund whatever projects it might need funding and to pay its employees, if the department does pay its employees. The money would pay the employees directly from the government position account, so the Imm. Account will be responsible for paying people now, rather that the Regional Reserve.

Obviously, the RR would have to accept the amount of funding that would be sent to each department. The first request would probably be off since we probably don't keep a real close eye on how much money goes where all of the time, but the following quarters would make it a lot easier to request funds since you'll know how much you've got left over or how much more you had to get from the Regional Reserve.

Now I know this doesn't do a lot to help with the revenue situation, but maybe it could help with the organization of the budget, if there isn't one already.

[morlago]

Is anyone even in control of the RR (except for Grub)?

[MinnaCaroline]

Sinn used to be in charge of the RR but since he CTE'd I'm not sure if anyone else does it.

[Bad Infinitum]

Every post a user makes generates tacos, correct? How about a region-wide spamming drive?

We have everyone spam their happy ass off for a set period of time, and then each nation that contributes to the drive donates however many tacos they generated to the reserve. Nations that don't generally spam can also sponsor a spammer, and agree to match the spammer's contribution, or to contribute a certain amount if their spammer hits a certain milestone.

Eh?

[Shizensky]

I think each post only gives the poster 1 taco.

or 15? Wow. I thought I only gained one the last time I checked. I must have just been looking at my post count....

So in that case, if you manage to get an average of 50 posts for 10 participants, which by our spamming standards is seriously lowballing it, that's 750 tacos. That itself is enough to pay for 150 recruitment telegrams. I think we'd need some serious postings on this fundraiser to make it work, but there are fringe benefits to it. We'd be increasing regional activity, which is always a plus, and we'd be increasing the forum post count, which alludes to activity, which is a great selling point.

[morlago]

How about taxes from political parties and corporate accounts? Maybe we can start those...

[Shizensky]

I'm not sure if it's a good idea to tax political parties. They serve as vessels of activity and can be helpful to unite nations towards being interested in our region's politics. Also, they tend to search for newer members of the region to join them, starting the activity cycle and such.

As far as corporate accounts go, I would assume that anybody planning on starting a business would normally expect to pay fees and taxes of some sort, so I agree with you on that one.

[morlago]

But apart from the 10KI Investment Corporation, there are no corporate accounts in 10KI (unless you want to tax the TIC). We'll need some serious advertisement.