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Taxed Monopoly

I don't just mean more income tax squares.
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This is a version of monopoly where, every time you pass Go, you pay a tax on all the money you have collected since you last passed Go, and a tax on all the houses you own, aswell as a poll tax, taken from the money that you collect as you pass Go (probably about £25). If you are very poor, and have few properties, you can claim benefits (10% percent of whatever is in Free Parking), and all money collected from tax goes into Free Parking. Benefit fraud and tax dodging ("Buy Whitehall? Me? I don't think I did" type tactics) would mean you are sent to jail. Also, you would pay 15% VAT on everything you buy.
The game, however would only get really interesting when people got rich enough to move their money and the deeds to their property offshore, meaning they wouldn't have to pay any tax on that object. There would be a charge to move individual items (you can't do it all in one go), but once on the 'Offshore Mat' (supplied to each player when a certain amount of money is given to the middle) the item is no longer taxed. To earn money back, you can move things from the Offshore Mat, and are paid fixed amount from the middle (which would be less than you originally paid to move your finances offshore, you tax evading bastard!).
up_on_cloud_nine, Dec 20 2008


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Annotation:







       If this is an American monopoly game, you still need to file for all of your offshore assets, and pay tax on any interest, profit, or wages earned. So while you may not pay property tax, you'll still (in theory) pay tax on rental income, depending on your foreign tax credits claimed.
mylodon, Dec 20 2008
  

       //Benefit fraud and tax dodging ("Buy Whitehall? Me? I don't think I did" type tactics) would mean you are sent to jail.//   

       Wouldn't the game get rather bogged down in legal proceedings?   

       Also, if the government is represented by a player (like the bank) who sits at the table with the other players, how will you make certain facts (such as ownership of Whitehall) visible at rent-collection time but invisible at tax-assessment time?
pertinax, Dec 21 2008
  

       [pertinax] you can hide cards under the table quite easily
up_on_cloud_nine, Dec 21 2008
  

       //Wouldn't the game get rather bogged down in legal proceedings? //   

       Hehe.... almost certainly, but that could add interest once people get good at it
up_on_cloud_nine, Dec 21 2008
  

       I would mortgage all my properties, repackage (or "securitize") all these mortgages as a new debt instrument, together with a couple of rock-solid bonds bought from another player to give the whole package a veneer of respectability, and then sell this debt at attractive rates of interest to all the other players who have spare cash. My property management company would pay me this cash as a bonus for managing the deal and route this to my private Cayman Islands account. I'd then default on the mortgages, thus plunging the other players into bankruptcy which would be made worse when it was discovered that all my properties had in fact been bought with dodgy loans raised against my anticipated future earnings which were then hidden in illegal "off balance sheet" companies.
hippo, Dec 21 2008
  

       oh, yeaw, me and my family might attempt to play this tonight (having nothing better to do)
up_on_cloud_nine, Dec 22 2008
  

       The new game is played with credit cards and no paper money. If you converted that into a computer game that could be run as the bank that uses a camera aimed at the board to monitor actions, this could work.
MisterQED, Dec 22 2008
  

       yeaw, but then there would be little to argue about
up_on_cloud_nine, Dec 22 2008
  

       Its either computer based, or at least comes with a PDF to reprint all the tax forms.   

       "You have won second prize in a beauty contest. Please remember to fill out a 785-B and include it with your tax return."   

       //I would mortgage all my properties, repackage (or "securitize") all these mortgages as a new debt instrument//   

       Sounds more like "Clueless".
bigsleep, Dec 22 2008
  

       So relieved this one isn't in public:government. Croissant.
calum, Dec 22 2008
  

       hahaha.... not that it would make much difference....
there could even be a "recession; taxes raised by 10%" card
up_on_cloud_nine, Dec 22 2008
  

       We have now attempted to play this. As we have the old version, it came down to me with a notepad to work out everyone's tax.
It sort of worked, but I highly reccomend that this is played electronically.
up_on_cloud_nine, Dec 28 2008
  


 

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