wrote:
To Clerk Alfred Carpenter
I can't believe that up until now nobody cared to charge taxes for the usage of publicly accessible permanent portals. We should've set up a toll booth on every possible portal and charge berks for safe transactions and warm welcome.
I mean who knows how many brigands could be waiting on our side of portal if not for our brave tax collectors, right? And yes, usually we have hardheads for that, but you have to agree, those guys are never around when you need them, unlike our tax collectors.
And considering the amount of jink and jewelry those so-called adventurers smuggle in every time, we'd be racking in jinks in no time.
Public Portal Usage Taxes
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*deusex2
- Posts: 115
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Rylif walks up to clerks desk and places a s letter with a huge grin on his face. He then walks away to resume his duties:
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*Agony_Aunt
- Posts: 855
- Joined: Thu Jan 01, 1970 12:00 am
Rylif,
Its a good idea, and it has been tried before. Both our own faction and that of the Guvners closely watch known portals.
However, trying to tax people as they came through portals on a fixed basis proved to be partially difficult and rather dangerous.
Firstly, portals do not always remain, and despite some portals appearing to remain for a long time in a single place, it is at the whim of the Lady, or perhaps some unknown force, and they can change. Especially bad when you think you are watching a portal to Elysium and without any warning it becomes a portal to the Abyss.
The second problem is certain factions or individuals, especially merchants, in the past have taken a particular dislike to this, and we have found our tax collectors facing hordes of Tanarri or other creatures who have been induced or otherwise provoked to swarm through the portal and attack whatever is on the other side.
However, the largest problem is the number of portals. Sigil is not called the City of Doors without reason. Any apature, doorway, arc, or any sort of enclosed space can be a portal, and many of them are. You probably walk through hundreds every day without even knowing, and may the powers have mercy on your soul if you just happen to have portal key on you and it turns out you have just walked through into the negative plane without protection. As an experienced planeswalker i thought you would understand this, but it doesn't hurt to remind.
Therefore we leave it to indivdual collectors to determine their own watch of portals and apply customs taxes as they see fit on individuals bringing goods into the city. Please note, we do not apply a tax on people entering simply for travel for a simple reason. The other factions, sects, and groups would turn on us in an instant, are regardless of our strength, we do not have the numbers to fend off a coordinated attack from half a dozen very annoyed factions.
AC
Its a good idea, and it has been tried before. Both our own faction and that of the Guvners closely watch known portals.
However, trying to tax people as they came through portals on a fixed basis proved to be partially difficult and rather dangerous.
Firstly, portals do not always remain, and despite some portals appearing to remain for a long time in a single place, it is at the whim of the Lady, or perhaps some unknown force, and they can change. Especially bad when you think you are watching a portal to Elysium and without any warning it becomes a portal to the Abyss.
The second problem is certain factions or individuals, especially merchants, in the past have taken a particular dislike to this, and we have found our tax collectors facing hordes of Tanarri or other creatures who have been induced or otherwise provoked to swarm through the portal and attack whatever is on the other side.
However, the largest problem is the number of portals. Sigil is not called the City of Doors without reason. Any apature, doorway, arc, or any sort of enclosed space can be a portal, and many of them are. You probably walk through hundreds every day without even knowing, and may the powers have mercy on your soul if you just happen to have portal key on you and it turns out you have just walked through into the negative plane without protection. As an experienced planeswalker i thought you would understand this, but it doesn't hurt to remind.
Therefore we leave it to indivdual collectors to determine their own watch of portals and apply customs taxes as they see fit on individuals bringing goods into the city. Please note, we do not apply a tax on people entering simply for travel for a simple reason. The other factions, sects, and groups would turn on us in an instant, are regardless of our strength, we do not have the numbers to fend off a coordinated attack from half a dozen very annoyed factions.
AC