Bill Woods wrote:Delphic.runsforcelery wrote: Nope.
'Nope', (at least) one person doesn't understand the imperial tax law? Or,
'Nope', the junction is still owned by Queen Liz, rather than Empress Liz?
On a more serious note, I meant the Junction does not become the property of the SEM; it remains the property of the SKM, a unit of the SEM. Think of it as the difference between federally and state owned land in the US.
On the imperial tax issue, the SEM requires that its components make it universally possible for its citizens to pay "imperial taxes" in order to have the franchise. If the component in question thinks it can raise all of its share of the imperial budget through such taxes, that's fine. If it thinks it can raise only a portion of its share of the budget through such taxes, then it needs to do so. The imperial tax for franchise simply requires that you pay more in imperial taxes than you receive in direct subsidies/transfer payments from the imperial government. It says nothing one way or the other about what you may receive from the component of the SEM in which you happen to live as distinct from the imperial government.
It should also be noted that the notion of requiring someone to exercise the franchise is anathema to Manticoran thinking. The Manticoran electoral tradition is that restricting the vote to those willing to make at least a nominal sacrifice in order to exercise it is the path of wisdom, and they regard what happened to the PH when it transformed into the PRH as a perfect example of why they operate that way. In some ways, the Manty belief is left over from the original founding of the colony and the reason the colony became the SKM in the first place: political power/the franchise is concentrated in stakeholders who are actively invested in their society and, ultimately, pick up the tab for that society. Their taxation system is set up in a way which makes it possible for just about anyone to become a taxpayer to qualify for the franchise, but they feel no compulsion to make it easy for someone to do so.
I do not hold this up as an ideal system, although I do think it has many points in its favor. I simply say this is how the SKM was structured from the beginning.
And is should be noted that if Klaus Hauptman chose to finagle his taxes so that when the dust settled he owed zero on them, he would also finagle himself out of the franchise.
