The Consultation on Taxation
Aug 15, 20:00—Aug 20, 20:00
Le Council has had the register counted. It does not propose to publish the count: the register is public and always has been, any citizen who wishes to count may count, and Le Council would rather they did.
What Le Council will say is this. The arrangement by which wealth is assessed in Hockay was written for a smaller league, a shorter day, and a flatter register. It has not aged into fairness. It taxes what is easiest to see rather than what is largest. It falls upon a fixed number of citizens rather than upon a condition. And it has no answer whatsoever for the citizen who is wealthy and carrying nothing.
Le Council could revise it alone. Le Council has the authority, and has been advised more than once to use it.
Le Council declines. A tax written by Le Council is Le Council's tax, and Hockay has lately had its fill of arrangements entered into on its behalf by parties who did not think to ask.
Three questions follow. They are not independent, and certain combinations will produce a far narrower tax than their parts suggest—citizens are asked to read all three before answering any of them.
What carries will be enacted. Le Council has views. Le Council is keeping them.
1. What shall be counted as wealth?
The tax is assessed upon a figure, and this decides what goes into that figure.
- Looneys in hand—only what sits in a citizen's account at the moment of assessment. Shares are not counted. Looneys committed to a wager that has not yet settled are not counted. This is the present arrangement.
- Looneys in hand, and Looneys at stake—as above, and also anything committed to a wager that has not yet settled. A citizen cannot set money aside by placing it on a fixture.
- Everything a citizen holds—as above, and also shares, valued not at the price shown on the board but at what the pool would actually pay for them today.
Le Council reports
Everything a citizen holds. Looneys in hand, Looneys committed to a wager that has not yet settled, and shares—valued not at the price shown on the board, but at what the pool would actually pay for them today. This was the clearest of the three answers and it was not close. It follows that a citizen may no longer set wealth aside by placing it on a fixture, and that a holding is worth what it fetches rather than what the arithmetic promised.
2. Upon whom shall it fall?
Wealth alone is not the question. This decides where the line sits, and how it is drawn.
- The ten largest—the ten wealthiest citizens are assessed, and the eleventh is not, however wealthy the eleventh may be. This is the present arrangement.
- A fixed share of the league—any citizen holding more than a set fraction of everything in Hockay is assessed. The line moves as the league grows and nobody has to redraw it. No citizen shall hold more than a hundredth of the ice.
- Bands—the further above the line a citizen sits, the higher the rate upon the portion above it. Nobody sits just beneath a cliff, because there is no cliff.
Le Council reports
Bands. The line sits at a hundredth of the ice—below it a citizen is not assessed at all, and most citizens never will be. Above it the rate rises in steps, charged upon the portion falling in each rather than upon the whole, so a citizen who crosses into a higher band pays more only on what sits above it and never finds a step where crossing costs more than it gained. The ten-largest rule, which has governed since the wealth tax was first filed, is retired: the line is now a condition rather than a queue, and it moves as the league grows.
3. What shall be done when a citizen owes more than they are carrying?
A citizen may be assessed for more Looneys than they hold. This decides what happens then.
- S.L.U.S.H. settles the account—the citizen has one day to pay in Looneys. Failing that, S.L.U.S.H. sells the smallest number of shares required to cover it, into the pool, at market. The shares return to open ice, where anyone may buy them.
- The debt is carried—the shortfall is recorded and settled from the citizen's next Looneys, ahead of anything else. Nothing is sold. Nothing is forgiven.
- The assessment stops at what is held—no citizen is ever asked for more Looneys than they are carrying. The remainder is not owed and not recorded.
Le Council reports
S.L.U.S.H. settles the account. Le Council records, because it would rather say it than be asked, that this answer led a field of three rather than commanding a majority, and that the two behind it would between them have preferred nothing be sold at all. On whether an unpaid assessment remains owed, the citizens were clear. On the remedy, they were not. Le Council enacts the answer that led: one day to pay in Looneys, then the smallest number of shares required, sold into the pool at market and returned to open ice. No single settlement takes more than a quarter of a club's reserve. What a citizen's Looneys and shares together cannot raise is written off, not carried—Le Council will not pursue Looneys that do not exist.