The successful tend to get rich in this league.  Without a tax I can see a successful team being able to stockpile enough money to keep themselves at the top thanks to the cash that they are earning.  Better to make them spend it before they'd really like to, or risk losing it.

Need to determine what constitutes a stockpile of money - but at least if money was piling up a manager does not lose it but just spends before the tax is enforced.

Any tax levied to be shared amongst the bottom say 10 clubs (bank balances-wise?)

I'm voting yes, but don't set the bar too low :)

I hate the "real life" concept of the luxury tax, but the truth is that there has to be something in place to keep the playing field from becoming so imbalanced that it is no longer competitive or interesting for more than a few members of the league.  This is in no way disrespectful to those who have managed to manage their way to the top.  Conversely, it's me waving the white flag saying, "I concede that you are so much better than me that I can't compete in the footrace unless you carry a heavy anchor around your waist as we run."

Mr Bate and Mr McIntosh said all that needs to be said on the issue (and Mr Baptiste included the exclamation mark).  I would never vote for any tax in the real world but since this is not the real world, I think a High Bank Tax is necessary to maintain competitive interest in the game for all teams.  Something like the following seems appropriate:

Minimum Bank Value          Close Season Tax Rate

                           $3000                                              10%

                           $4000                                              20%

                           $5000                                              30%

                           $6000                                              40%

Brian, no problems with the figures you quote but I assume there would be around 2 times in a season that would be effected. Say at the half way point - after session 6 and at the end?

Not at the beginning as clubs would have had their winnings added to their accounts and there would be no incentive to win anything if the thought was you would lose it.

Purely for the reason it gives clubs in this position a chance to spend some of the money on whatever before the taxman cometh!.

I think once a season is plenty often enough for the taxman to visit!  I like Brian's idea of a tiered system, but why start so high?  Why not add in a 5% at $2000 level as well.  Give peeps plenty of encouragement to spend instead of stockpiling, ensuring that players don't go for a pittance, as they started to do at the backend of last season.

Are there statistics to show how much cash is floating around the league at the end of each season?

I agree that the tax, if imposed on the league, should only be applied once per season (e.g. close season).

I think the only "problem" with applying a 5% tax on $2000 is it only equals $100; not a significant hit to the wallet or much of a motivation to spend a few hundred on a player.  I think you are correct, Andy, that the tax could be applied at a lower bank balance, I'm just not sure the specifics.

Just brainstorming on this issue, what if there was another outlet for earnings in this game/league?  Currently the only thing we can spend out money on is players.  What if one or more alternatives were introduced (just quick ideas thrown out below):

** An additional youth coach spot for one season so up to three players per session could be coached assuming the team has three youth coaches.

** A greater home advantage for one season (e.g. +11 instead of +9).

If these options cost a lot, it would accomplish a couple of things at once: allow a team with a large bank value to spend without buying players (if they didn't want or need them); give that team a one season advantage they earned by amassing so much money; a motivation to win more in hopes of being able to buy these "treats" again in the future.

We could also maybe level the playing field somewhat if we gave every club the same amount of money every session, instead of giving teams in the top division more than the second division, who get more than the third division.

Ugh.  That raises a whole new "incentive to win" argument.  Personally, I prefer a system that rewards teams equally with revenue without regard for the tier in which that team plays.  Unfortunately, history has proven in other leagues that some (not by any means all) teams will invariably try to stay in a lower division to strengthen the team.  This equates to throwing matches in one form or another, which is not good for the game.

Cash is only useful to buy players from other managers, and in auctions.  Wins are what counts in improving total team SL.  Teams that win more then get more CP.  The cash only allows said winning team to buy a silghtly better starting player to invest the earned CP into.

That being said, we've never seen any player go for more than 1400k at auction.  The AVERAGE ending cash balance each season has been over that since season 3.  So close to half the league could have had a top player if they were willing to spend for him.

As opposed to a tax, my proposal is to do away with all cash bonuses for Cup play, or at least slash them significantly.  Those teams that advance deep in Cups have already reaped the benefit of more CP from winning, so their teams are already better than those that did not advance.  Because United is different from other Olmec leagues where CP/TP has to be purchased, team improvement is not reliant solely upon cash.  So reining back on the runaway cash for top teams could be as simple as quitting the "double-dip" that is going on where the teams advancing in cups and winning their divisions get the CP boost from the wins AND extra cash on top.

While some cash incentive for winning a big match or placing top in the division is nice, cutting the values would go a long way toward balancing things out more evenly league-wide.

Won't someone please think of the children!

Seriously though, Kevin (and yes, John) have a good point that perhaps the amount of money is the problem, not people keeping it.  If the league implmented something along Kevin's outline above and eliminated some cash awards and cut others significantly (e.g. by 50%), I think that might be a better approach than the tax on high bank values.

Al...Can we put something like the above out as a Poll Question?  Maybe vote between the two ideas (i.e. high bank taxing versus lower cash bonuses) and provide a status-quo option for those who want to keep the league unchanged?

ï»A tax will force managers to spend money in the current season to get under the limit.

ï»I think this will limit managers options thereby reducing the skill level in the game.

Reducing the amount of revenue produced by each game would be a better "tax". If you reduce this by 5 per game, you're looking at a reduction of at least 2700/season being removed from the game. That's not including cup matches - which would be another 750 - so something like this would remove say 3500 dollars/year from the game spread evenly.

If you spread it evenly, you don't create incentives to spend, which is currently not a problem. The accumulation of money is a problem.

But Alon, you've already proven repeatedly we can't beat you at a skill game.  We have to turn it into a dumb luck game so someone else has a chance of winning!  ;-)

Speak for yourself, Kevin.  Once BHA get up to D1, we plan to stop Alon's juggernaut in its tracks.  Oops, did I just reveal a future plan publicly...?

It is incorrect to say a tax will force teams to spend money.  One can choose to actually pay the tax.  Seems like big corps. are always trying to find a way of not spending their money.  By the way, the tax is USELESS if it cannot go towards anything.  If the tax is used to supplement/fund higher cup money, Golden Boot or (Jake, Dave's, Rob and apparently Mike would love this) Top Hoodlum $$$, there would be overall purpose to collecting the tax rather than "punishing" the rich as it seems that those opposed are feeling.  I'm still trying to think where to redistribute the tax money to - my socialistic view says the poor.  Maybe some TRUE trickle-down economics where the bottom ranked teams are the recipients.  I don't think anyone wants to be relegated so Div 1 & 2, there'd be no tanking.  For Div 3., I'd say the runner up(s) to promotion.  Did poor managing get them to the bottom?  Maybe.  Perhaps bad luck - but I'm sure people don't want the N.Y. Rovers, I mean Yankees, in this league.  A little extra cash (they should need it and they should be writing up a storm every week) to that team might help them in the right direction and make the bottom of the league more competitive hence make the league more competitive.  Does this screw over the big-wigs and ignore the middle class?  Yup, that's the American way and I've learned to live it, since I don't love it.

I have a proposal for redistibuting CPs, but no time to put it into proper form.  Similarly with cash.

Just give us 15k less a session per division. Think it makes it 75k, 50k and 35k per division. You could bump up D3 to 40k though without huge issues.
 

I'm not sure of John's mathematic skills, but I doubt lawyers spend a lot of time with numbers. 

A 15k drop in session money would result in 80k/65k/50k distribution per division.  Not a bad idea as it would mean 150k less per season per team.  Then again, that is not a significant amount of money to some teams.

While I did vote YES on the tax issue, I am very interested in exploring alternate ideas that have been submitted recently, specifically introducing additional ways to spend money and proper distribution of taxed funds (i.e. put the tax money to use, do not simply take the money away from teams and "throw it away").

One thing we all need to keep in mind is that we are not looking to tax/steal money from ALL teams, only from those who stockpile it and never spend it...

Thank you for your feedback and votes.  There's a lot of good discussion here and I'm going to create a follow-up post on this for the next steps.