Tax day messed up yet again??????????

Well I see another interesting development in the tax system.

Without warning the following occured, chim in if it happened to you......


I usualy get taxed late night on the said tax day on my account history..


NOT today!

I have planned my object/land usage around this schedule of tax being applied at the end of the day on the listed tax day in account history. Well I login at 6:30 am my time today to be greeted by the tax window saying I lost over 16k!!!


I have lost much $ in game due to crashes and what not throughout the history of my game play. all in all around I am guessing at a +- of around 8 to 12k. now this hit of almost 17k in tax when the tax time was changed was just crazy.

How is anyone to plan their finances around a ever changing tax day?? RL issues regarding money is hard enough, how can we play a game that has so much focus on EARNing money when the tax is never consistant??

I understand the reason for tax but my god why make it impossable for us to plan??


Kissling is now going to be gone. everyone that has rented a plot here will have the option to buy the plot they currently rent. I give only 5 days till land is released. Or if I make up the almost 30k that I have lost due to issues with the game.

Thats right 30k! who here has 30k? alot don't...It is hard to make up 30k let alone to just have it dissappear. I ahve sent bug reports, I have talked 1 to 1 with lindens before. I am always told something different in regards to getting my losses made up. I no longer will take on grand projects till this issue is resolved. We need a better way to get our lost $ back, a more consistant way. Also the tax day/time NEEDS to be a set time, this changing stuff is for the birds. Especially if we are to pay RL $ to stay in here.

That said, I will no longer be a landlord as of 5 days from now. Thanks to those who tried out city life, but its just too much if the landlord loses $ due to system inconsistancies.

EDIT:

Just so you all know that this wasn't decided totally by haste.....

I have been dealing with constant issues in kissling, basically behind the scenes it hasn't been pretty. I have had to deal with some pretty stupid battles between many people. I ahve been put in the middle various times. I was not making Kissling into a city so that it could be consistantly challenged by squabbles and people intentionally picking fights then bringing it to me in a manner that you "expect" me to remedy it at that moment.

I am not here to play the game "for" you.

Yes as a landlord there are certain things that even in a game must be done, but somethings are just too much.

Not to mention that half the residents don't show up or do anything with their buildings anymore. And the object usage in that sim is beyond ridiculious. its almost maxed and still hardly looks like a full city. even eith empty buildings and all.

Again I was expected to remedy this too ! I have no super powers here. I can't magically fix that issue either.

Sorry for the highly negative sound of this. But I am disappointed in the situation, and see no other way out. I take my hat off to Wednesday Grimm and BP for the length of time they held the first town/city together. I don't know how they managed it. But I can see at current game levels, to have a thriving self supporting city is almost impossable.

It makes me sad to see kissling go, but i understand where charlie is coming from..

Money loss is a big obstical in this game, not only on tax days.

Just so everyone knows my position on kissling...

I plan on keep the theater up. I really enjoyed building it, and it seems alot of people enjoyed the first play. But the park, the city hall, and the park vista emporium are coming down. Not nessisarilly because of charlie leaving kissling, but because ive been low on cash, which is completly my own falt.. (i own way too much stuff for my taxes, was -1000 when i logged on). I hope my current neighbors will stay on kissling island. I may own some land surrounding the theater, hopefully.

This is gunna be a sad SL month coming up.. people who are leaving and now kissling...

The problem to me why there is a city problem is cause all people know how to do is gripe. Well so and so put up a tall building and now it blocks my scenery. Do any of you who wine about that know how freakin stupid that sounds? This is a game and you gripe about scenery? Go to the mountains IRL once in a while if u want scenery. I also think the tax situation is outta control, it's just too high for anyone. That's why I chose the 3 month deal instead of Lifetime. I look at it as if I'm flat broke in 3 months, I'm not staying in this game, who would want to? I realize yeah getting ratings and not even owning buildings might be the answer but I'm not paying to come here, build a few little object, hope they sell off and chat. That's just silly. I think now that yeah maybe taxes are needed but to call them taxes now is what they should be rightfully called cause of like Charlie says inconsistencies. Lindens, if you want to plan on keeping customers or people in the game, get the tax thing straightened up, make them smaller, make the item decay time much quicker, if someone puts an object up where they know it will get deleted. I say if someone puts an object up on public land or on someone elses land, screw the item decay time, just make it public right away. That will get people to read everything about the game they need to know where they don't skip over something and then complain about it on the forums knowing because they didn't attend basics classes, or read through the tutorial is why they have an issue or question. People you need to have respect for what others are doing for this game. Don't go getting land in a new area and then do nothing with it. The problem is everyone has an idea of what they wanna make and then just give up on it before anything happens. If you aren't serious about building anything in this game do the following, if you change your mind about building anything delete all your objects and release your land, leave your personal problems at home. Bringing them to the game shows your maturity level in alot of ways. I agree with Charlie, to keep a good thing going is near impossible, because people make issues out of things that are fixed simply. It kinda makes me laugh at some people, if they have these issues and problems in the game, imagine what their life must be like. In closing I'll say this game needs dramatic improvement. To me, and only to me, this game is in no way shape or form ready to be launched. I've been and seen Betas that take years before they can even think of releasing it and this game is not much of an exception. I realize funds are limited and it costs money to keep this thing going but you gotta make the product right before you can ever think of releasing it to the people. The American public is the harshest audience you can perform for. I know there's other countries out there too but mainly USA people play. If this game is to be one of greatness, many many things, non bug related need to be changed. I hope it all works out good for the game but until 3 months from now I won't hold my breath.

I, for one, am NOT letting Kissling go. Within the next few days, we are having a large protest, in Kissling, demanding the lindens refund charlie IN FULL. Lindens, if you want to avoid a full scale protest, you WILL refund this money before this Monday.

SL is still in beta test. You have to expect bad things will happen, especially with complicated systems like the budget/stipend/tax mechanism.

Neo, PLEASE USE PARAGRAPHS OKAY

WRONG!

Maybe in the early days of beta, 6mo to a year before release ok. But 2 weeks before release?!!?! NO! Wrong! We should be able to expect a near release quality product at this point. And besides, they need to work out how to deal with things like this if the system had gone live, incfase it happens down the road they will have a system in place to handle it.

Charlie,

Your last tax day was June 7, 2003. At 1 AM Pacific Time the your taxes were assessed.

<snip taxes transaction list removed>

Exactly one week later, June 14th 1 AM Pacific Time, your taxes were assessed:

<snip, taxes transaction list removed>

Your account history should state that you last paid taxes on 6/14, and that your next stipend/tax day is 6/21.

Your taxes were actually lower this week than in many previous weeks. Frankly, I'm surprised that this wasn't a problem before.

While there have been many errors in the stipend/tax system, it looks like it ran correctly last night.

James Linden

Edit: removed transaction list.

right but what I ment is tax always was assesed at night of the day listed in the history. not in the am.


Hard to plan when the times change. Thats all that was messed up.

Consistant times are a good idea especially for those who live tax day to tax day. and have high tax and need to base their expensis on the tax.

Sorry to sound mean here. But the start of my thread focused on regularity.

Then went on to losing $ due to crashes and no solid, set means of reimbursement. This is going to be needed when it goes live. I can only see SL suffer if there is constant irregularities, no reimbursements, added to the issues of a new product being released.

I don't want to see SL fail but this could lead to a bad path.

We need tax so the game is limited so its playable, but we need it consistant so things can be adjusted and planned for.

James for an example of the issues brought up with irregular tax times plz reffer to my last post in this thread....


/13/d9/3114/1.html#post19697

Edit: also plz don't post people's tax history here, kinda not right if you know what I mean.

I thought things like object banking or whatever else you can do to cheat the system were considered illegal.

*shrug* I dunno. I get 12k in taxes each week and the only thing that keeps me alive is the fact that I get reimbursed for the taxes put upon me by the land under the casino. I've dipped to -1k for two weeks straight.

I'm not really sure if and how I should be complaining about taxes, all I know is, the system definitely doesn't allow a person to have three very large plots of land

Edit: Just thought I'd mention that I'm not pointing any fingers here. I'm accusing no one of cheating the system, I'm just saying I always thought doing those sort of things was "not allowed"

object banking illegal? Hmm...isn't that what we all do no matter what?

You get in over your head; very easy to do in this game, just keep playing it.

You get -1k...agh you are disgusted. So what do you do?

Release land and objects, so that you can build again, which gets you back to zero. Repeat.

The only difference is one is not pre-meditated. AT least in the pre-meditated case you're not getting rid of objects you care about.

OK Dave...

I had banked objects in the past, I discussed this with a Linden, and my explanation was a valid one in the eyes of this Linden. Be it not friendly to the resources but was valid to an extent.

So I decided not "NOT" to have banks.

But to see it from my perspective, or anyone elses that has lost $ due to crashes. See this...


Say I have 20k on my avatar. I build a building. that costs me 10k. Sim crashes. Sim comes up. Building gone. Cash Gone. 10k Left right? Not always. But still Objects gone Cash gone.

How do we avoid this hmmmm lets see.

Have an object bank near by that listens for a command to delete one or a set number of primes to delete.

I want to build said building that costs me 10k. So I delete say around 200 at a time from my bank as I build my building. Sim crashes. Build gone? yep. Cash gone? yep. But are the objects back in the bank that were deleted to be able to build said building? YES!

I am so tired of losing $ due to you people playing with messy physics, I need to proitect my assets from you. THE LINDENS tell you physics people over and over again, PHYSICS CAN CRASH SIMS!!!

DO you listen? NO! I distinctly remember a post on if you know of a bug that crashes a sim you are not to repeat it once reported. Should this apply to an abuse of physics that crash sims? YES!

So is it wrong to object bank in this manner to avoid losing my play experience in $ to some people that don't listen? I think NOT!

Show me one person that has lost over 10k in game due to tax inconsistancies and people crashing sims...Please show me.

And once you do ask them should it matter how much $ they got in relation to how much they lose.

Dave I am not saying you are one that plays with Physics. I am just sick of how the wealthy and creatives ones here get trampled on in the name of resources. Not ment as an attack on you.

Show me a stable tax system, show me no crashing sims, show me sims that dont take $ away when crashed. THEN and only Then when I have large land grabs and a creative artwork of builds up that exceed my stip, will I consider no banking.

And now that we are on this topic. If someone is able to make a load of $ why should our creativity be hindered by a tax that pretty much clears us out? Do you want creativity here or not?? So far I am seeing not. Unless you think creativity is being broke. I must be real creative IRL, Cuz im broke as all get out. I don't plan on struggling in my virtual escape when I struggle IRL with $.

*snip complaint of posted content* Thanks James Linden


Edited to remove some assumptions that I didn't verify b4 posting.

Intentionally done this way to prove a point. People get peeved at the smallest things, good to know I still have the power to prove that. That's exactly what my and Charlies post is all about, getting peeved or annoyed for the simple fact that someone doesen't use pargraphs. Now that's too funny.

Actually Neo your point was probably completely lost on more people than it was made - I saw one huge paragraphless post and completely skipped it. And I generally read everything, just look at my post count.


And on topic - the accounting in this game is too screwy.

James: Las Week it said my taxes would be friday but I didn't get the pop up until Saterday, and since then my sheet said I would get taxed on next saterday. Well on the basis of last week that would imply I would get taxed on Sunday, but nope - I got taxed Saterday.

And I agree with Charlie, please do not post my account history to a public forum. All it would show is I am going boke but please don't.

Also better tracking of the funds of people on a sim is needed so that people can be re-imbersed in the case of a sim roleback. I dunno how you can do that but it is desperatly needed.

Charlie, I feel your plight and am glad you brought it up. I had a similar incident after returning to the game after a long hiatus. I owned land but had nothing on it, also had quite a bit of money from my texture shop and releasing and deleteing previous properties in Hawthorne before I bought my current land in Perry.

Deciding to sign because I didn't want to be deleted or lose my land I found myself over a thousand dollars in the negative- this with no rezzed objects, no taxed objects (except land) and having spent no cash. I was deep iun the red. Apparently my bonus/stipend didn't come in handy much but I never had a problem before. Since returning i have not been able to crawl from the hole. Generous donations from friends have helped me get back on my toes and afford to start building again, but today was my tax day, I had almost a thousand dollars left avfter building. Signed off, then signed back in hours later to find I had 300.... okay no big deal, figured I better be frugle. 2 hours into visiting and chatting with frinds I hear CHA-CHING

-$1,000 again.

Something just didn't seem to fly right with me, Peter was kind enough to explain how the bonus and stipend are combined as a final total of your allotment and taxes come from that. However after the last incident Haney simpley told me, "You have a lot of Land." lol. I don't think I have any more than really the hardcore SLer. Certainly I would consider my land plot to be a bit more than most casual players. But it's not an insane amount.

Perhaps the system needs a bit of tweeking. I love the fact that we have to work for our money and it is earned by status ratings and leaderboard placements, it certainly is motivation to make enthusiastic attempts, but it's alike a new level of difficulty now, one that I can't see, even me having a nice bonus being successful in. I do teach to earn my income, I had a store in Natoma for income, can't afford it at all anymore so had to release the land and put all the objects in my inventory for cash. Instead of having two large plats I figured I'd best be suited financially with the one plot I have in perry which is drowning me in debt.

I can see the Lindens aspect of making it challenging, but with all due respect, not all of us can be incredible designers like Billie and Fey, or master scripters like Nate007 and Sleeper, or artisans of weponry like Yuniq. Some of us would love to participate and express ourselves creatively and do what we can to make money, but for the casual player I see that being severely squelched. I hope I'm not speaking out of line, I'm sure there's much I don't understand yet concerning economic distribution, but it has been said to me on more than on ocassion that SL is suffering from a 'depression.' lol

Regards,
Phaylen

Thank you James for removing the tax info.

But I was online at the last tax hit and ones prior to that. I was growing to expect some regularity as it seemed that as I was online, it hit the day of tax listed in my account info, but late night not in the am, or the next morning similiar to how Ama put it.

I don't know how your system deals with us being online when tax hits but that is how it has hit for me. This time was not of the norm I came to expect.

If there are tweaks on how the tax system handles our accounts I think it would be good judgement to let us know ahead of time. As you can see this is a very sour subject among mostly all the residents here. Soon to be Paying residents. Paying with real US $. .

This time it did hit in the late night morining hours, Like you posted it should, but not like before, I had no idea this was to happen.

But since it is tax related no biggy I do not expect a refund. Nor do I think one is warrented. But I do think warnings of change and a sorry would help many of us.

Coorporations can afford to blunder at times, I don't know nor have any business how LL is in financial stability, but man I love this game, I don't want to see things like this cast a public doubt and have even the slightest chance of causing you guys problems.

I signed on for life for a reason I want to be there when we "plug in" to the SL matrix hehe yea right wishfull thinking don't hurt.

$ in any form can cause issues, her eor RL. losing $ to unexplainable or unsolved our of our hands issues is rather hard to take. Like I said tax wasn't and hasn't been my only issue here. I am not begging for my $ back. I am asking for a better way to track losses. So that people who eventually pay US $ to be here get lost Linden $ back as we go live.

I will shut up now, I have no hatefull feelings towards LL. If I did I would have done and said other things. But I like it here. It just needs to be fixed.

**man what a typo here I did, hehe thats what I get typing tired**

Phil Your still DA man!!

Hi All,

Sorry to see so much unhappiness regarding taxes! At the same time you are all such a great bunch for continuing to handle this so diplomatically - I love the community we have built here and this is yet another example of how poweful it has become. Just check out the forums on any other online world / RPG /etc for a crash course in how cool SL is. Thanks you guys.

James I'll come to the protest and give you my AV and you guys can burn it in effigy! Or throw me off the docks with the Tea.

OK, some thoughts to ponder:

Remember the tax system is no more than a mechanism to balance resources between all the residents, so that the ability to build is fairly balanced. We (LL) don't make any money on the way taxes work - that was an important design decision! They just balance the system for residents. So if we don't all like the way they work, we should change them! But keep in mind that balance is a requirement - any solution must address that.

We could have designed SL so that objects/land were directly tied to RL money, but we felt that rewarding those residents whose commitment, hours, and skills best served the community made more sense, especially in these early days. There doesn't seem to be any correlation between RL money and beauty in SL, right?! So we designed the taxation system to attempt to do that balancing - move resources to the people doing collectively the best work. So voting stations + stipends + bonuses give money directly from the system to the residents and taxes take it away again. It is important to use some sort of recurring tax rate to cause the system to constantly CHANGE - for example to allow promising new residents to build big things, for example.

Reading this thread and the others from Tcoz, Derek, suggests to me that the biggest problem is perhaps in supporting the emergence of really large collective enterprises (like Kissling - which is ABSOLUTELY AMAZING, btw). You guys who are doing the greatest work and holding together the communities are now doing some serious banking (as landlords for example) to collect from the people who live/play/explore these areas. This is stressing the system, and it is because of your great work - I never thought things would develop so fast!

The idea of the themed communities was an attempt on our part to partially finance and organize this sort of project. It is remarkable, btw, that Kissling rivals those communities in complexity and was completely organized and financed by Charlie and other residents.

So we will put some serious thinking into this first thing monday. It is a busy week getting ready for launch, but I promise we will find time to deal with this. There is a town hall meeting this week, and so let's use it to discuss this as well.

Ideas welcome here or as separate threads on proposed changes to taxation in the meantime. As James Linden posted, the mechanism is probably not faulty, but we may want to debate the design.

Hunter has just posted a great developers journal on taxes BTW... probably must have checked it out but if not check out https://secondlife.com/news/journal/index.php.

Again, apologize for the frustration.

Ok, I can understand being upset about taxes. I myself don’t like having to plan everything down to the last dime, but pretty much, I have done that with my place.
Charlie I respect and admire the work you have done. You have also championed many of my causes, but lad here I am a bit worried.
Those of us who rented from you did so in good faith. We wanted to be in a planned community. We wanted to live in and build something that we could take pride in, and we did. I am not sure how your other renters feel. I can only assume that they agree sense most of the city which was a beautiful thing is gone.
I spent a ton of time and money on my place for a few reasons. One I liked the idea of some structure and dignity in my surroundings. Two I like having you as a landlord. Three I enjoyed having the theater next to me. It felt like an artist community. Four I thought an urban setting might be a better place for the Open Flame. Now all my reasons are gone.
Kissling will become another area filled with unstructured junk, and pollution. The area will loose it’s structure, and eventually I don’t see Lynn wanting to be in just another ghetto area the two of you have to much class for that.
I made a commitment to this community both in time and in cash. I know The Open Flame has caused a bit of controversy, but I have made a commitment to it as well. I just can’t keep moving the place.
I am not sure what the act of tearing the city down means. It reminds me somewhat of the LA riots. The Lindens are not hurt by this action. Your neighbors and tenants are hurt however.
Well lad that is my say. I don’t want to loose your friendship, but I also have to walk in my own integrity.

And I'm SO glad you didnt. This option is a HUGE turnoff. Thank you

Just a question...
I noticed in the "convert your membership" post somthing you said about having politics in-game. I was wondering if this would in any way/shape/form affect taxes and stipends.

I believe the true question comming up is this:
"Should a person have the ability to govern a project and still have a personal playing life outside of that governing position?"

It sounds like a wacky sentence, but I will kindly use myself as an example of what the sentence is asking. Keep in mind that we are asking if I should or shouldn't be allowed to do the following:

I have 3 lives in Second Life.

1: I own a very large and expensive chunk of land under the Atlas Casino, which I have agreed to spruce up and manage in order to get people interested in the build again. Currently I am being funded for this land, but this may not last forever.

2: I own an above average amount of personal land in Minna. I use this land to try out scripting/building experiments, to sit and relax in the calmness of the area, and to have a place to put my craziest creation, the "Matrix Box". This was the first land I ever claimed in-game and the sentimental value is too high to let the place go.

3: I own 1/16th of the Gibson sim in order to help out and build with my themed community, Nexus Prime.

OK so I guess this makes me a "prominent member" of Second Life. But it also makes me among the poorest! My taxes are through the roof. The only thing that keeps me alive are the grants I get for the casino land.

So aside from the question of "if I should be allowed to play the game this way", I also ask, am I greedy? When I take a critical look at my own Second Life, I really think that I should just get rid of my land in Minna and solely play the game to work on the Casino and on Nexus Prime. Then I just get into the argument that I should be able to do all this stuff, because it's my Second Life, and I can do what I want!

One final question I'll put forth to everyone, even though I'm sure only about 5 people will take the time to read through all this. "Are land taxes too expensive?" This could be the main reason prominent people (who buy up the most land) are poor people!

I am in no way saying you have to own land to be prominent, since I know a lot of prominent people who don't own any land. It's just... I dunno... whatever.

*sigh* that was a mouth full. If you read all this, congratulations! Lemme know what you think, this is definitely an interesting situation...

How about some effort going into an audit-trail mechanism for the accounting system as you build. It sounds like currently the system keeps your accounting info in a separate computer. When you build, a deduction is made from your account, but the rezing of the object is only known to the sim you are building in. If that sim goes down, then the knowledge of that transaction goes with it. Bad accounting!

One fix would be an automatic audit of everyones account that was in a sim when it crashed. If the persons net worth is different after the crash than before (at some checkpoint interval) then that amount can be restored.

Another approach (better I think) would be a simple transaction log, which like the accounting would be on a separate machine. This log would record all money transactions, as well as all building transactions (create or delete objects). Since a sim crashing doesn't cause all objects on it to disappear when it comes back up, I assume each sim has some checkpoint or backup mechanism that it relies on to return to some preexisting known condition when it comes back up. The separate log would only have to exist long enough to sync up with that existing mechanism, so I wouldn't expect this to be a particularly large file/database.

You didn't read through my post, and in fact never even noticed it? Well let's see your last post was just talking about how you didn't notice it or even read it yet here you are posting about it. You people make me laugh.

You said you never read through it so how would you have even known weather it made a point or not. Charlie agreed it made sense and surely so did other people. You apparently hypcocize your words alot don;t you? You totally contradicted what you said, Ama.

Wow, its amazing how much happens when I actually get some sleep .

I was dreaming in SL lol.

Well some great points were made. And well Thai, you make a valid point. Perhaps I did act in too much haste and irresponsible regarding the respectfull residents in Kissling.

I was just at the end of a rope per say. Sorry it came out bad.
Some thinking has been done but a little late, but not too late, as I didn't release the island. I am planning to keep the island, just thinking on how to restructure it.

The big problem regarding Kissling from a Tech type view is that the sim limits were being hit to often, and people were getting seriously limited. This was causing some of the tension as people were on a witch hunt to find those who had the most primes in their rental.

My builds, Lyn's builds, and a few others were removed. But I did not remove anyone's stuff. If at the time of this post you have not removed your build. Please don't yet. Discussions in world nee to be made. Restructureing needs to happen.

No more wasted space can be or should be acceptable. I think I'll rebuild a town type feel but not a city. As a city invites the constant sim max for primes. Also, I am thinking that if there is a build in the town it needs to be used, not just left there for decorations. Thai I know yours was planned to be in use.

Also Phil thx for posting to this. I have a idea (now that I am refreshed by some sleep).

How about a sliding scale of an increase of land purchase price once you own a certain amount of land.

Like for example someone buys a plot 5x5 squares at regular price, every plot after that is at an increased price. Then the total land tax is lowered. as owning land has only one drawback. And that is, less avail to others. It has no impact on sim performance. In fact an area such as a themed communtiy or Kissling could have a good impact on performance as less garbage is present.

Make it harder to buy large plots but not so hard to maintain.

Thx again.

Dave, I know how you feel...

I am basically in the same boat, feel lucky for the casino funding! hehe. I dont own a huge amoun of land, but I own many builds that are very detailed. The a&w in zoe, apart of the old rt66 grp, a huge tower in vence, the theater in kissling, and before the deletion, a city hall, park, and the vista emporium.

So something had to come down.. the tower in venice and the a&w are a cupple of my fav. builds. Where as the park and the foutain, (water thanx to skee, which made it look a thousand times better) the city hall and the vista emporium were ok builds, but not my best.

Now to answer your questions dave:
I feel yes. although you basicaly cant because of the tax system. I am applying this to being in groups raher then governing, just so i can explain why i feel yes. I am a creative lil muse, i need freedom to express my creativity.. If i was limited to being able to build things for one themed area, i'd prolly quit SL. Id get bored.

Personally I dont think it's greedy. If you have played, and earned, and strived, and worked, and tried so hard to get all that, you should be able to keep it. But its like if u do have all that stuff, you only be taxed into being broke.



Personally... I think so, yes.

Interesting question u tossed out there dave. Questions that bring up valid points.

Lynn