Where does my money go when i sell? taxes for beginners

Okay so the first time i sold something on the market i noticed i got back a bit less than i expected. I honestly thought it was a bug. It was not a bug, it was tax. So let me try to explain taxes in a simple way, because i wish someone had explained it to me earlier. The main one you will meet is the sale tax. When you sell goods, a percentage is taken from your proceeds at the moment the trade completes. That percentage is the sale tax and it is set by your country. So when you price your stuff on the market, remember the number you see is not exactly what you keep, because the tax comes off the top. It is smart to factor that in so your net amount is still worth it for you. Where does that money even go? It flows into your country budget. The budget is basically the national treasury, and it pays for things like the citizen bonuses and other country spending. So the tax you pay is not just disappearing into nothing, it is actually funding the bonuses that you yourself can collect over on the Bonuses page. Kind of a circle when you think about it. Now here is the part i found really interesting. Nobody just decides the tax rate randomly. The citizens set it. Through the political process, players propose and vote on laws, and those laws set the tax types and the rates. That means taxes can change over time as new laws get passed. If you want to see what the current rates are in your country, you open the Taxes page under Politics. I really recommend checking it so you actually know what you are paying. Because different countries have different rates, where you trade can change how much tax you pay. Some experienced people use this as part of their market strategy. I am way too new for that level of planning, but it is good to know it exists. There are a couple of other taxes that are easy to mix up, so let me clear them up. First, your salary. When you work a job you pay a ten percent salary tax out of your gross pay. For gold jobs it goes to the game fund, and for local jobs it goes to the state budget. Second, gold. There is a ten percent gold tax but it ONLY applies to gold you BUY on the exchange, and it is charged once, at the moment you buy it. Very important thing here: gold that the game fund PAYS you, like share dividends, quiz rewards, or the gold your articles earn from reads, is never taxed. You keep every bit of it. So dont think you are getting taxed on your rewards, because you are not. One last thing about game shares since people always ask. Game shares are not taxed by the country budget at all. But if you sell a share to another player, a ten percent split comes off your gold proceeds, five percent to the game fund and five percent to whoever referred you. And if the game fund itself is the one selling the shares, then there is no fee at all, the price you see is the price you pay. So thats taxes in a nutshell from one beginner to another. Sale tax when you sell, set by your country and feeding the budget. Salary tax on your work. A gold tax only when you buy gold. And a small split when you sell shares to another player. Once you know these four, you stop being surprised by the final numbers. Hope it helps somebody.