Taxation

The Benevolent Dictatorship of Baja LasVegastan taxes its subjects. In this respect it is no different from any other nation.

However, the Benevolent Dictator considers three things to be unwise.

First, it is unwise to dictate to a tributary nation – whether denoted as such eo nomine, or as a "province", "state", or other name – the ways and means by which it shall raise the required tribute. It is better to require only that the tribute be made in the required amount.

Second, it is unwise to arbitrarily allocate the tribute to be imposed on several tributary nations. Such arbitrariness breeds insurrections. It is better to allocate by population, and to allow subjects of the various tributary nations to freely migrate among such nations.

Third, it is wise neither to tax commerce (and thereby to diminish it), nor to tax sin (and thereby to become dependent upon it). It is better to tax only the value of the land.

The Benevolent Dictator therefore has imposed the following limitation upon his front organization, the Congress, in the form of a proviso in his front document, the Constitution:

1. All taxes imposed by the Benevolent Dictatorship shall take the form of a surtax, collected directly from every subject (or resident alien) of the Benevolent Dictatorship (and not through the administration of the affected tributary nation -- including "province", "state", or like entity), upon taxes which the person pays to the tributary nation in which he resides.
2. The Congress shall adjust the rate of the surtax annually, tributary nation by tributary nation, so that the surtax rate imposed on residents of each tributary nation for this calendar year would have resulted -- if it had been imposed throughout the last fiscal year -- in the per capita surtax paid by the residents thereof being the same as the per capita surtax paid by the residents of any other tributary nation.
3. The Congress may increase or reduce the rate of the surtax from time to time, so as to increase or reduce the total surtax receipts paid to the Benevolent Dictatorship, but the increased or reduced surtax rate imposed on residents of a tributary nation -- becoming effective at any time during this calendar year -- must be such that it would have resulted (if it had been imposed throughout the last fiscal year) in the per capita surtax paid by the residents thereof being the same as the per capita surtax paid by the residents of any other tributary nation.
4. The fiscal year ends on September 30, three months before the next calendar year begins, so that there will be time to make and publish the necessary calculations.
5. To ensure that the electorate understands the positions of all candidates for elective public office:
   1. all elections for public office, except to fill a vacancy, shall take place in November or December, and at least 10 days after the necessary calculations have been published; and
   2. all terms of office shall begin on January 1, and be for an integral number of years.
6. Any person  residing in one tributary nation may move to any other tributary nation. Such person thereby:
   1. becomes a resident thereof;
   2. becomes liable to pay the taxes -- and the surtaxes -- applicable to his new residence instead of his old residence;
   3. shall have the same rights and duties as are enjoyed and imposed on persons (subjects or aliens, as appropriate) who are lifelong residents of that nation, except that length-of-residency requirements may be imposed on candidates for elective public office; and
   4. must register his new tributary-nation-of-residence with the Benevolent Dictatorship within 10 days after moving -- and, to this end, the Congress shall have power to enter into cooperative arrangements with the several tributary nations to administer this provision concurrently with any registration-of-residence requirement of the affected tributary nation(s).

7. Every 10 years, the Congress shall conduct an audit (which it may denominate as a "census", "enumeration", or otherwise) of residence registrations, and shall appropriately:

   1. adjust the total number number of registered residents of each tributary nation; and

   2. declare (and thereafter appropriately adjust) a uniform procedure for adjusting the total number of registered residents of each tributary nation to best estimate (annually, on September 30) the actual number of residents of that nation;

   but any method for determining the actual number of residents of each tributary nation, when used for per-capita-surtax-equalization purposes, shall also be used for all other purposes.

8. Any tributary nation may impose a uniform tax on the value of land within its borders, anything in its constitution or laws to the contrary notwithstanding.