| what is up with people and 70+% in taxes, good God, I have never went over 50% even when I am at the beginning of the game when I need it most. Once I got my economy going I hover around 25% and still take in 1 to 1.5k a turn. Once I went as low as 10% making only a few hundred just so i can be happy that I run an effienct govenemt |
The point is to have a high tax rate (=higher income) while still keeping the population happy. If your getting ~1.5K at 25% you'd be getting ~4.5K at 75%. If you can do so and still keep your population happy then you can use the extra cash to buy improvements so your planets develop faster. You can also use the cash to buy and upgrade ships. Extra money is as good as, and somewhat more flexible than, extra production, the only thing it can't really buy is research (unless you count buying tech from the AI's).
Throughout my current gigantiac suicidal game I've been operating at 100% approval (giving me the 100% pop growth bonus) on every planet (currently have 226) with a tax rate of 79%. Every planet I have has a single advanced farm for a total pop of 15B (except civilization capitals that have 20B) without a single morale building on any planet (other than stock markets). I do have two morale resources that I'm mining (+44% each) as well as most of the morale wonders. At this point I'm generating ~60K bc/turn. This is a big help in large invasions. I'm taking over ~25 AI planets a turn using the Mini-Soldiers tatic (500 bc each) to minimize the number of troops I need. I also have plenty of money left over to buy 10 or so Industrial Sectors to jump start the production on my newly accquired planets. If I had to hold my tax rate to 25% to keep my pop happy then I'd only be getting ~20K per turn and be much more limited in what I could do.
Actually, at the begining of the game during the colony rush is when you most need the 100% approval bonus for early pop growth. That's the time I set my tax rate to ~15% and go into deficit spending from my initial 5000 bc plus whatever my flagship can get from anomalies until my colonies begin to become profitable.