guild-taxes
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Officers' Quarters: Tax time
Every Monday, Scott Andrews contributes Officers' Quarters, a column about the ins and outs of guild leadership. He is the author of The Guild Leader's Handbook, available this spring from No Starch Press. In the United States, federal and state taxes are due in just a few days -- April 15 is the deadline. If you haven't figured out your taxes by now, you're probably in a bit of a panic. Though we often resent paying, taxes are the price of living in an organized society. They pay for defense, schools, roads, social programs and a host of other benefits. Some we can all agree on; some are a matter of fierce debate. In a guild, taxes are often a controversial issue. Some guilds who use point-based systems like DKP will tax members' point totals to prevent point hoarding. This week, one reader is wondering about a different kind of tax. Hi Scott, I am a member of a casual raiding guild. Recently some of the officers have been kicking around the idea of a "raid tax" -- a set value of mats used in a week's worth of 25-man raiding that can be paid by members either in gold or through supplying the mats themselves. It's funny because the "tax" for a given week sounds exorbitant to me (close to 1,000 gold when they figure in the price of enchanting mats and gems for loot).
The Daily Grind: Does your guild have a summer amnesty?
Summer is now in full swing and the lure of the outdoors is strong. School is out, people are going on holiday, to muddy music festivals or just enjoying the fine weather. Suddenly virtual worlds and MMOs are that much quieter as people dip back into real life. Each year, my guild mistress institutes what she calls a 'summer amnesty'. Over the summer things become a little more relaxed, there's no ire if people don't raid as often. Real life takes precedence for once and things just chill out a bit. People come, people go. Even better, rather than monthly farming, we just have to contribute once and it covers the majority of the summer. That gives me the freedom to not feel guilty about lengthy absences so I can sit in my garden and drink cider or go to the pub. It's nice.So with the heat of summer now upon us, I'm wondering, how does your guild cope with the summer months. Do you have an amnesty? Do you forget about farming and just have fun? Do you just tone raiding time down? What about guild taxes or farming? Do you make an effort to improve guild bonding by maybe even having a real life meet up or BBQ? Do you partake in summer festivals? Tell us in the usual manner.
Paying your dues with guild taxes
Now that guild banks are incoming to the game, what's missing from our little virtual economy system? Taxes! That's what Noplat suggests, anyway-- he says that now that guilds have a place to store up their own central banks, the next step is to require payments from guild members for various guild running costs.I'm not quite sure I agree-- most guilds don't require anything like this. The biggest costs I can think of simply involve raiding repairs, and not only is not every member of every guild involved with raiding, but repair costs aren't that big a deal anyway, especially with daily quests throwing out money for just a few minutes' work. There may be costs coming in the game (guild housing would obviously require a lot of money, and we still haven't been told how siege weapons might work in guild battlegrounds-- will we have to buy those?), but at this point, we don't really need guild taxes or membership fees.The closest thing my guild ever did to a membership tax is that they ask everyone to pay a few g to any engineer that drops a repair bot during a raid (to cover those costs), but considering how the new instances are set up, I haven't seen a repair bot need to be dropped for a long time anyway. Does your guild need enough money to require membership fees or taxes? And if so, for what? Potions?
