Taxation

Taxation is the primary source of income for the city in Urban Empire, coming from two sources: Business and private citizens.

Overview

 * All taxation must be approved by the City Council, with no exception. You can propose changes to tax levels yourself or the parties can put forward proposals of their own. In the latter, they will ask for your support, allowing you to score a bit of for free if you support their proposal (while also making the residents a bit more inclined to voting for them).
 * Finding the sweet spot in taxes is a challenging affair. However, as a rule, you don't want to keep them very low. While higher taxation will cause some businesses to collapse in the short term (primarily those that cannot provide sufficient quality or generate enough sales), it will provide enough money to build up infrastructure, invest in public services and their funding, and ultimately, research faster and pass amendments that promote better and more profitable ventures. Ultimately, with high taxes you trade short term comfort for long term benefit and vice versa.
 * Running the city in the red (budget deficit) isn't inherently bad. It will make the council more inclined to vote for cost-cutting measures and increase taxes than otherwise.