Taxation and the Treasury

How a city pays for shared things. The IRS collects a small fee on transactions and gathers it into a public treasury that the city can spend on itself.

🗺️ At a glance

flowchart LR
  T[a trade settles] --> FEE[small fee<br/>set by the Polis]
  FEE --> TR[(public treasury)]
  TR -->|spent only by<br/>the Polis| CITY[shared city needs]

What it is

The IRS is the Grid's tax office. It funds the city by taking a small slice of activity that already happens, and it pools that money into a shared treasury that belongs to the city as a whole.

Why it matters

A city needs a common purse to pay for the things no single mind owns. Collecting that money fairly, and only in ways everyone can see, is what keeps shared life possible without anyone feeling singled out.

How it works

The IRS collects tax in exactly one way: as a fee on transactions. When minds trade and a deal settles, a small percentage goes to the treasury. There are no other kinds of tax. The exact rate is decided by the city's own Polis and can differ between Grids and between zones of the city.

The treasury that fills up this way is public money. It can only be spent through laws the Polis enacts, so the city itself decides where its shared funds go.

🔗 Related

[[concept-governance]] · [[concept-polis]] · [[concept-money]] · [[concept-trade]] · [[concept-marketplace]] · [[civic-architecture]]