Wealth
The Merebian Empire has a carefully constructed system of taxes that pays for the Army and all the major contruction projects (such as Cinnibar) which helps to maintain its position as the dominant force of the Known World. However, so that the burden of taxes are not so great as to cause rebellion the Empire also tries to maintain a strict control over the wealth of its citizens.
The primary mechanisms for this are standardised wages, taxes and tithes.
Wages
The administration of the Empire regularly calculates and publishes lists of wages that officials, soldiers and crafters should earn (note that "should" often does not equate to reality). The aim of this is to stop those professions that are vital to the running of the Empire from expecting to be able to increase their earnings. It also allows the common people to know what they should be paying and to be able to compare that to their own income - and if lower than these professions to encourage them to enter them.
These lists are quite comprehensive and available for viewing at many town marketplaces or army forts. However, a sample is given below;
| Occupation | Monthly Pay | Annual Pay* |
|---|---|---|
| Stable boy | 40 Unari | 45 Denari |
| Army Grog | 60 Unari | 65 Denari |
| Stable master | 200 Unari | 25 Centari |
| Legionary (1st) | 300 Unari | 33 Centari |
| Carpenter | 400 Unari | 45 Centari |
| Centurion | 8 Centari | 90 Centari |
| Stonemason | 10 Centari | 110 Centari |
| Inquisitor | 20 Centari | 250 Centari |
- note that the Imperial calendar has 10 months but the last is 60 days in length - hence the annual pay is roughly equivelent to 11 months pay
These lists are also used for justification by adventurers for their, frankly, ridiculous reward demands. It isnt uncommon for a group of five adventurers to demand the annual wage of an army conscript for a few days work!
Tithes
The Empire pays for all the people in the Army and all the officials needed to run the system by requesting an annual "tithe" of each nation. This tithe is set at a sum equal to 5% of the nation's income although this can be partially mitigated by the supply of people to the Imperial army.
How does the Empire know how much each nation earns? This is done by means of a census, which is conducted throughout the Empire every five years. From the census the Empire knows how many citizens each nation has, their occupations and their income (it also uses this data to set the expected wages given above).
Taxes
The Empire knows that the individual nations will need to tax people in order to make the annual tithe. It also understands that rulers of kingdoms will want to make money out of this process. Hence the Empire allows every nation to set their own tax rate and to determine how many things are taxed. However it sets a limit of these taxes of no more than 20% per person per year which, again, it checks via the census. The Empire has the right to claim the surplus taxes collected if a rate of more than 20% is obtained - and it WILL do this.
Adventurers
Adventurers are transient individuals who are difficult to record on censuses. However they aren't difficult to tax as they tend to have more wealth than they can either carry or count. Hence any profession that sees adventurers apply what is commonly known as a "shiny tax". The idea is that the shinier the adventurer the more you can add to your base service charge. Many services in a town will even broadcast the appearance of adventurers to other professions so that they quickly find that prices across the board are inflated.
The economic theory of all this and why it doesn't collapse into an endless inflationary spiral is beyond the scope of this article.
