That's an interesting way to cheaply get fairly honest tax declarations 🤭

Downside is though, that if you declare a fair value and the king misjudges, your customers don't get the product you did deliver on schedule. So this introduces other problems, but still interesting thinking.

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SunshineGirl · 36-40, F

It's a really clever way of alligning the tax base with the market. I think in reality the king/state would only exercise the right to purchase if the merchant was clearly seeking to deceive.

HootyTheNightOwl

Lmao... How does the king expect sailors to be able to put an accurate valuation on items that they might never see or know anything about???

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HootyTheNightOwl

@NerdyPotato That's my argument, though... we know that there are people who smuggle items through shipping - so, what's stopping me from smuggling gold bars through this country hidden in my shipment of trainers.

The captain can only declare my trainers and not the contents of them... which is worth many times the value of the original cargo I declared.

NerdyPotato · M

@HootyTheNightOwl fair enough. Some checking will still need to be done I guess. But you can discourage smuggling through spot checks instead of checking every container of every ship for the exact amount of tax owned.

SunshineGirl · 36-40, F

@HootyTheNightOwl The captain of a private ship in the 17th century would have entered into a business partnership with the merchant supplying the goods, therefore would have a direct interest in knowing the value of the cargo he carried. Va!ue is always relative and subject to fluctuation, but he will have first hand knowledge of the market and what price he needs to achieve for the voyage to be successful. The point is that if he deliberately underquotes the value of the goods to reduce his tax burden, he risks having to dispose of his goods at a sum based on this misrepresentation (and then presumably having to explain to his partner why they have made a trading loss). There is a certain beauty in the theoretical simplicity of the system 🙂

Burnley123 · 41-45, M

That is such an efficient way of doing an audit.

SW-User

On the surface it does seem like it could cut down on mixed messaging from corporations, e.g., where a company like Comcast tells regulators they need a massive reduction in regulation because it is just killing Comcast and making Comcast likely to bleed out and die .... while at the same time telling shareholders that profits are at historic levels and the company is facing zero headwinds

SunshineGirl · 36-40, F

@SW-User Would certainly assist with transparency.

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