Hello! I'm new to the game (played years ago) and curious if someone might be able to explain exactly what the tax rate does. Obviously raising taxes gives you more $/citizen, but then you lose a bunch of citizens. Does it also affect the max # of citizens you can have? Or does raising the rate just slow the rate of population growth?

Is there a consensus "optimal" tax rate? Is it government/play style specific?

Thanks in advance! I've been able to figure out a lot of stuff from forums/wiki, but this one I have yet to crack.

usually its 35% for cashers and 36% for others (if you are playing as indy and bushels price is high and mil prices low then higher tax% reduces bit about food consumption due less pop), raising tax% doesn't affect your max pop, only tech, residences and land affect that (and govt if it happens to be either theo (+50% to max pop) or fasc (-15% pop)).

tax does affect your max pop. For example, someone with 5k land and no residences with a tax rate of 35% will have more pop than someone with 5k land, no residences and 40% tax rate. If it only affected your growth then at some point they would catch up to each other (non cashers) and you would set your tax rate as high as possible.

Just stick to 35% or 36%. You can differentiate the formulas for tax revenue and you'll find it is between those numbers depending on the prevailing food price.

Thanks for the responses!

if you are non-casher then you could run with 40% tax since your income comes from whatever you produce not from taxes.

Yeah, most people like to keep it around 35, but most times it doesn't really matter if you're not a casher.

You'll be surprised just how much cash a non-casher makes from taxes as a proportion of your total income. I'll suggest it at 35-36% still.

sure if has positive income but if has negative then it shouldn't matter.

70% for first turn then down to 35% for the remainder of the game is a good rule to stick by (until you look into exactly how the forumula work)

It does matter. It could mean the difference between being -100k a turn and -200k a turn.

35% and 36% are the two optimal tax rates, depending on food prices. You should never use a different tax rate except when setting it to 0% temporarily to recover from special attacks which have killed too many of your civilians.

Dan4GS, it depends on what country you're playing from. Different countries have their tax paid differently :)

And the first two turns of the reset (if things are still the same as they were years ago.. if not, I've been screwing up the first two turns of every reset since I came back) :)

1st 2 turns are quite same as years ago, i use 70% tax for 1st turn and 50% for 2nd turn.

If you wait until you have 160 acres before playing any turns, that will do more harm than good. The best way to play is to wait 48 hours before using any turns (but still login and logout for the 20 free acres and the 18 hour bonuses) and then to start playing with 160 acres on your country. If you do this, then 35% tax is optimal, and switching to 70% tax will do more harm than good.

haven't waited and i log twice on 1st day (after reset and then when i get bonuses).

35% FTW!

Thanks for the tip! Every little bit counts, especially at start up.