Taxes – Collections & How It’s Used

This page will cover taxes and how the money collected from taxes can be used. Math and numbers come very easily to me. Please let me know if something doesn’t make sense and I’ll try to explain it differently.

Taxes – Deciding How Much to Collect

If you’re using your tax money for community lots or for public universities, you need some means to decide how much money you take from each house.

There are 2 main options. They can be mixed as you see fit and you how you feel your neighborhood has progressed.

1. Sims donate whatever amount they have available that won’t leave them too poor to afford bills and other necessities.
   • Like if a Sim got a $50,000 bonus from a chance card, donating that $50,000.
     • Wildhood Heights specific: unless needed for house renovations, chance card bonuses will be donated to city funds at tax time.
   • Or if you want to knock every house down to about $10,000 each time for households that have more than that.
2. You take a % of their net worth / cash on hand.
   • Net worth is a little harsher than cash on hand
   • Net worth is cash on hand + value of their house
   • You could take a flat 5% tax.
   • Or you could say that the richer families get to pay a higher % of their funds
   • Wildhood Heights specific
     • Houses with a net worth of under $150,000 pay a tax of 10%
     • Houses with a net worth of $150,000 or more pay a tax of 15%
   • If you go this route, you may also offer ways for families to pay less.
     • Like deductions in real life taxes.
     • So things like marriage, running a farm, having dependents, etc
     • Wildwood Heights deductions
       • Marriage – $1,500
       • Dependents – $1,000 each
         • Dependent is any Sim that is dependent on someone else for their livelihood.
         • So children, college aged kids, grandparents living at home who aren’t still earning their own paycheck.
       • Wildwood Heights Examples
         • Briggs 1 Household – Hypothetical
           • Currently has 6 residents, 3 adults and 3 toddlers.
             • Roxann, Randi, Sean, Aya, Isabelle, and Lauretta. Roxann is Randi’s mother and Randi is married to Sean. Aya, Isabelle, and Lauretta are Randi and Sean’s kids
           • Hypothetical situation is Roxann ages to elder and retires, becoming a dependent
           • Their current net worth is $50,755. Their tax rate is 10%.
           • Their tax due before considering deductions is $5,076.
           • Deductions wise they would get $1,500 for Randi and Sean being married and $4,000 for the four dependents (Randi’s mother and their 3 kids).
           • They would get a refund of $425
         • Tortall 1 Household
           • Has 8 residents: Tkaa, Aeryn, Uuosae, Kaia, Ulasim, Uline, Volorin, and Volney.
             • Tkaa and Aeryn are married, elderly, but still work. Uuosae, Ulasim, and Uline are Tkaa and Aeryn’s kids. Uuosae is the current head of the house and is married to Kaia. As Ulasim and Uline were in college for the round this example is from, they got to remain as dependents. Volorin and Volney are Uuosae and Kaia’s kids.
           • Their net worth is $91,963. Their tax rate is 10%
           • Their tax due before considering deductions is $9,196.
           • Deductions wise they get a $1,500 for Uuosae and Kaia being married and $4,000 for the 4 dependents. While Tkaa and Aeryn are elders, they still work and therefore aren’t dependents.
           • They would pay $3,696 in taxes.
   • You may choose to include Business totals in how much they would pay. You could also give a perk for a business being Rank 10 by reducing how much a Rank 10 business counts toward net worth.
     • Here’s an example:
       • Montes 1
         • Has 6 residents: Karl (unemployed elder), Andrew (adult), Sharron (adult), Stephen (adult), Uline (adult), Troy (infant). Karl is Andrew’s father. Andrew and Sharron are married. Stephen is Andrew and Sharron’s kid. Stephen is married to Uline. Troy is Stephen and Uline’s kid. All but Uline and Troy are vampires.
         • They own 4, top level businesses.
         • Total net worth of the household is $173,217
         • Total value of the businesses is $257,742
         • Wildwood Heights gives a deduction of 50% of a business’ worth if it is rank 10. Since all of the businesses they own are rank 10, the total value added to the taxes is $128,872.
         • Total tax amount for the Montes 1 family is $302,089. They have a tax rate of 15%.
         • Their tax due before considering deductions is $45,313
         • Deductions wise they get a $1,500 for Stephen and Uline being married and $2,000 for the dependents (Karl and Troy)

Taxes – Collecting Taxes

You can do it multiple ways. You’ll need to use cheats or mods no matter which route you decide to go.

1. Familyfunds the money into nothingness
   • This may get trickier as your families grow up and you start getting more than one family with the same last name.
2. Use a mod to move the money from one Sim to another
   • This is where you would create the one Sim in CAS that doesn’t count toward anything and doesn’t use up a CAS Sim point. Because they are the ones you’re sending money to. They’re just a Sim representation of the city’s bank account.
     • I suggest making the last name something you wouldn’t use on an actual family to make it easier to remove money from them.
3. Either way that you do it, make sure you note down how much you collected

Wildwood Heights Sims send checks to a sim that will have a last name of Taxes. I use the checkbook from Simwardrobe.

Taxes – Using the Collected Money

You can use it solely towards funding a public university, you can split it between the public university and community owned community lots, or you can do whatever you want with it – give it to the Mayor Sim because they’re corrupt.

For Wildwood Heights, the money will be used to fund community lots, pay refunds, and finance Universities.