Question: Sales Tax

So when it says sales tax goes to the land owner, does that mean that owners of the malls get the tax from the shopkeepers right? What about on Land Areas? Do they get their own sales tax?

So what about Land Plots? Where does that sales tax go? I am the owner should I not be receiving it?

Venture Bros said:

So when it says sales tax goes to the land owner, does that mean that owners of the malls get the tax from the shopkeepers right? What about on Land Areas? Do they get their own sales tax?

So what about Land Plots? Where does that sales tax go? I am the owner should I not be receiving it?

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- On land areas, 2.5% (if I remember correctly) (it's fixed by MA, it can't be changed) are paid to land area owner

- Malls: Malls sit on a tiny land area (that also can have mining- and hunting tax though it's normally nor applicable). So see above.

- MA owned land (land outside land areas): They are also taxed. In this case the sales tax goes to MA.


Two specific examples: All shops in the apartment buildings in Treasure Island City have 2.5% sales tax. However, sales tax from platinum building (if I recall right) goes to land owner (ie Deathifier); and sales tax from all other buildings goes to MA.
The other example is Emerald Lakes Mall; in this case the mall doesn't sit on a tiny land area that's just there for sales tax purposes; the Emerald Lakes Mall was sold with the normal land area it sits on.

Then we have the example of Asteroid/FOMA. Here I *think* that the sales tax from shops goes to whoever owns the "primary" land area for asteroid; the land area that is none of the domes. Not sure for shopkeepers in apartments.

ancient discussions... but still relevant... and still confusing since Mindark's said one thing one day and something else another... what's actually true is hard to tell honestly. May be a subject for a dev note someday in the future?

First we get Marco's statements:
http://www.mmogamer.com/06/11/2007/...ness-to-attract-150-million-users-to-entropia

The MMO Gamer: Does MindArk take a transaction fee when players trade with each other?
Marco Behrmann: No. We also don’t take any transaction fees

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https://www.planetcalypsoforum.com/...rk-s-revenue&p=1170748&viewfull=1#post1170748

Marco|SDS said:

I can do it again - MindArks revenue stream is from deterioation of items when they are used.

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Marco|SDS said:

MA makes money on decay on item usage. All other monies are transferred back into the Entropia economy.

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No, MindArks revenue stream is from decay. So it is not an urban legend. All other areas (auction fee, ammo, etc) is cycled back into the economy.

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then we get this:

Marco|SDS said:

We take revenue from decay, we never stated that all decay is revenue though.

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and this:
https://web.archive.org/web/20100418025815/http://www.planetcalypso.eu/en/node/71

How does it work ?

So, how does an affiliate program look like on a game concept that's basically free, with no download fee or monthly subscription fees ? How does the operator actually earn money ?

Each tool, weapon, clothes, basically everything a player can utilize has a specific basic value. This base decreases by a certain preset amount every time an object is used until it reaches almost zero value and has to be "repaired".

The correlating amount of the in-game currency PED and therefor 10:1 US-Dollars of what the item decays gets distributed 50:50 between Mindark PE AB as operator of the Entropia Universe and the planet partner where the participant has the account registered and pursuing its activities, in our case First Planet Company and Planet Calypso.

Another source of income are fees and commissions attached to the in-game auction and player's shops. Every sale on the auction and shops produces a sales commission that also gets shared 50:50 between Mindark and the Planet Partner.

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and this support reply, which was a response about where the taxes are going in places like Omegaton, etc.:

Hi,

Thank you for your patience regarding this issue. Please accept my apology for the delayed reply.

I have been informed that in such cases MindArk and / or Planet Calypso are the owners in such cases and therefore receive the tax fees.
Kind regards,

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I believe Minark's put out some info that is obviously false about taxes, etc. in various places, so some in the community believe what they said one day and others believe what they said another day... what's actually true is hard to say really since they've never been straight up about it, or if they have been, it's a bit elusive as the game that existed when Marco was around is NOT the same game that exists now, and that affiliate site and program is mostly dead except for just a handful of folks that are privileged with special treatment to have affiliate links, etc. ...

Personally I believe that the reason Mindark won't let any shop's markup go below +1 with 2 pec tax is because they want at least one pec for each sale to go to Mindark or to be split between Mindark and the Planet Partner and the other pec to go to the actual LA owner, but as mentioned in places that there is no actual LA owner, it's just going ot the PP...

Add in the oddity that Calypso itself isn't owned by a PP but a bunch of deed holders in addition to Mindark itself and the math probably gets more confusing and convoluted... Probably easier to follow the real world banking collapse a couple of years ago than to trace who is getting what percent in game, especially if they have it all coded like they do most other things, which seems to be speghetti code that where don't know really if anything really will work or not until it's live and someone beta tests it for them with a real avatar, loosing ped along the way, as usual.

Even more fun to think about - the rental fees were removed from estates long ago, the decay costs on shopkeepers changed long ago,

Added Info (by Solaris):
The decay of a Shopkeeper seem to vary slightly but averages at 38,5 pec for every purchase made. This is important knowledge when selling cheap items! Also the shopkeeper decays 1 pec every time you add an item, and additional 1 pec for every item "cleared" from the inventory. The "Clear all" button on the shopkeeper is rather expensive to use then, but can be avoided if you just drag and drop items back from the shopkeeper to your personal inventory. This action does not bring decay.

A small message appear when an item is sold: "An item is sold from your shopkeeper".
No other info is displayed, so you have to keep track of the items and prices yourself.

Setting prices in the shopkeeper must be done carefully to avoid too much decay and mistakes. No markup-calculation is made like in shops or auctions. Hence you must first check the item-value and calculate for yourself your desired markup, then drag the item to your shopkeeper, where immediately you have to set the buyout price. Decay at this point is 1 pec.

Arranging the items inside the shopkeeper is a waste of time. All items will appear 'disarranged' when a new avatar looks inside.

Dressing up a shopkeeper can ONLY be done inside your apartment, your shop or on your private estate. Clothes and items on the shopkeeper are unsellable and do not count towards the inventory-limit.

Added info (by Mastermesh)
The shopkeeper decay formula used to be different then .10 per sale, as noted above.

However, the decay formula for the shopkeepers was changed at some point in time. I have not added this note until now since I'm not 100% certain on the actual date the change happened or which vu caused the change to happen since the change happened prior to my time as an estate owner.

The decay from adding and removing items was taken away and the decay cost is currently 10 pec per
sale. The minimum markup in a shopkeeper, just as it is in any shop or booth is still +1
ped so that minimum tax collection is .02 per sale

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Auction fee changed over time, etc.

Add in all the 'secret avatars' that Mindark is giving an allowance of peds to 'play test' with (or arguably to create havoc on the market mainpulations, etc.) (2k a month or so if I remember correctly what one 'not-so-secret avatar' mentioned in the forums somewhere)... (suspect that these secret accounts are what Marco may have been hinting at with the statement "All other monies are transferred back into the Entropia economy," since those secret accounts are feeding loot pool but in a way most wouldn't necessarily think of the way he stated it... )

As usual, Entropia is Dynamic, yadda, yadda, yadda...

aia said:

- Malls: Malls sit on a tiny land area (that also can have mining- and hunting tax though it's normally nor applicable).

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ah, memories of the days when Malls were PvP zones, lol. Would be interesting if they made them lootable pvp zones.

So I should get my tax then as I own the Land Plot...

You do yes.

atomicstorm said:

You do yes.

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Compare to the shed, on land plots, on shed areas.

You can put a shop keeper on a shed land plot. Shed land plots are normally located on a land area.

However, the land area isn't the plot area (around the shed), it's the (taxed) area on which the shed stands.

So, in this case the tax would go to the land area owner and not the owner of the shed.

For old houses, I would guess that they are considered land plots and land areas. So, if you put a shop keeper on the area belonging to the house, the tax would go to the land area owner; in this case it's the "default" land owner; MA/"FPC".

For the new land lots, I would then guess that they would behave like the land lots with Buildings, rather than a land area. In this case, again, the land lot owner wouldnt' get the sales tax but rather the (default) land area owner.

One thing you could test is dropping an item on your lot. If it says that it could be picked up by anyone, it would probably mean that it's a land area and you'd get the tax. If it drops silently and you can drop low-TT items (< 1 pec) it would probably mean that it's a land lot.

I guess it's best to ask someone who operates a shopkeeper on a land lot if it generates tax if items are sold in it.

My la has a house on it.. it operates as a shop. I get tax from it as I used to sell amps and stuff on it.

Problem is that I can't lower (or raise) the shop tax.

But, I take back my original statement because I thought he meant land area first glance .. tax from your land plot would go to the owner of the land the plot is on... which would be the planet since the plot is like the house on my land area. Whether this should be or not is a different question. Better to have the tax set to 0 for these plots.

atomicstorm said:

Problem is that I can't lower (or raise) the shop tax.

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Maybe the reason why tax is fixed at 2.5% is that, while a new mall is estabilshed, the owner of the mall could go out with say "Only 1% tax on the shops in this mall - buy your shop here and get a business advantage" to get the shop deeds sold faster or at a higher price. Then a lot of shops are sold to buyers who want to offer items at a slightly lower cost. But then the original mall owner gets tired, sells the mall, and the new owner wants to rake in Money and increases the tax to say 5% (or even 10% if it's allowable). And the shop owners who maybe paid extra for the lower taxed shops will get upset.

Theoretically it can be the same for the shed lot on a land area if the shed is owned by someone else than the land owner; that is the land area the shed sits on could gets sold to someone else who decides to up the taxes.

Another way to see it, is maybe that MA don't want the malls to compete using the sales tax. Or, consider a wealthy society or a tight Group of players buying a new mall, setting the sales tax to 0, and giving out shops to the soc members.

What I Think is a bit of a problem is that it's not possible for a shop/shopkeeper to set markup less than 1 ped, which makes it practically impossible to sell cheap beginner-level items. In auction you can sell for TT (seller pays fee), but it's not allowed in "shops", probably to enforce that every sale pays out sales tax. In the past (Before optional terminals and portable TTs) this was a problem also because land owners had to charge markup for ammo even though they really didn't want to.

atomicstorm said:

You do yes.

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I don't. A land plot is not a land area and I am not getting my taxes as I should be for some reason

aia said:

Compare to the shed, on land plots, on shed areas.

You can put a shop keeper on a shed land plot. Shed land plots are normally located on a land area.

However, the land area isn't the plot area (around the shed), it's the (taxed) area on which the shed stands.

So, in this case the tax would go to the land area owner and not the owner of the shed.

For old houses, I would guess that they are considered land plots and land areas. So, if you put a shop keeper on the area belonging to the house, the tax would go to the land area owner; in this case it's the "default" land owner; MA/"FPC".

For the new land lots, I would then guess that they would behave like the land lots with Buildings, rather than a land area. In this case, again, the land lot owner wouldnt' get the sales tax but rather the (default) land area owner.

One thing you could test is dropping an item on your lot. If it says that it could be picked up by anyone, it would probably mean that it's a land area and you'd get the tax. If it drops silently and you can drop low-TT items (< 1 pec) it would probably mean that it's a land lot.

I guess it's best to ask someone who operates a shopkeeper on a land lot if it generates tax if items are sold in it.

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When you drop an item you cannot because of item limit restrictions.

I own a shop keeper in a plot. I am not getting my taxes. It is why I made this thread...

MA gets the tax,not you,since the plot is on MA's land area.