Court Bailiff (Nation Debt Collector)

[Most Lee Harmless]

Suggestion :

The nation may appoint an Court Bailiff : this may be a citizen, or a third party (such as a 'bounty-hunter').

The Bailiff will be empowered to fight and, if successful, seize debtors ships to be sold, on behalf of the Nation, to reduce such debts as exist between the player and nation.

The bailiff must nominate an Enforcement Fleet. (as one might set a trade route or fishing fleet) It may then only skirmish debtors fleets in the port where it is present. If successful in the skirmish, the bailiff will gain an additional plunder of one random ship from the targets fleet. The proceeds of the sale will pass to the Nation treasury. The Bailiff will be paid a bounty of n% set when appointed.

Once appointed, no further laws need be passed as any and all debtors, whether ship-tax or loan defaulters, may be targetted for debt recovery as long as the debt exists.

-1 Skyhawk

Updated Title -Dez

[Warrior]

I don't know why would someone do that. If he can capture target's ships then he'll keep for himself, why hand it over to a nation ?

[Most Lee Harmless]

Being appointed by the nation adds the ability to gain the supplementary random ship capture when defeating the target in battle : this would be seperate to any issues of purses or ship position in the fleet : effectively, the Bailiff would 're-possess' a random ship from the fleet once it is defeated : the proceeds would be applied against the outstanding debt with a fee of a set percentage being paid to the bailiff : thus, the bailiff gains extra plunder from their successful strike because they are the appointed Bailiff.

More realistically, the Bailiff, in real life, would seize the whole fleet : but making it a random capture adds an element of chance and means the bailiff has to work for their fee.

[Warrior]

What does the nation do ? Sit back, make taxes high and enjoy the income they get ?

Then I can just go to a highly populated nation and make the taxes high and appoint a bailiff and then raid them to zero ships

-1

[Most Lee Harmless]

Or the nation can sit back, do nothing and allow enormous sums to accumulate in unpaid taxes.. like the 750mil debt owed to Mexico as of today.

The ability of nations to act to recover debts (not just ship tax but under loan insurance as well) is a previously stated and desired update : I am contributing an idea to that.

[fullfathomfive]

I am a believer that a nation should/would make every effort possible to collect delinquent taxes. I am also a believer that a nation should do this through existing nation personnel rather than by hiring a bounty hunter. The tax owed is essentially a customs import/export tax of goods bought and sold through the nations port. It's not a stretch to believe a nation would make every effort to acquire taxes legally owed, rather than view a growing list of debtors and do nothing.

Difficult process it seems to implement a remedy. Perhaps a single vessel acquired upon establishing port control used by nation personnel to search and extract what remedy may be available. Many debtors may have already met Davey Jones and scavenger pirates already taken any available assets. Yet there are some perhaps that still sail the seas under a different flag where remedy is possible. I see little difference with this tax collection issue, than we are asked to preform in NPC tasks against rogue elements for promotion.

[Most Lee Harmless]

ideally, one would use ones own citizens and therefore only require a small % 'bounty' to reward their efforts : however, some smaller nations may not be able to find such a citizen within their own ranks and an outside 'bounty-hunter' may take up the job if given a higher % of the recovered funds for their efforts.

[Captain Jack]

Governements should be able to do as much as their force can do or better put as much as their citizens allow. Imposing an unrealistic tax of 250k per ship is sure to create debts to any nation used. It is the right of the citizens not to pay it and it is the right of the legally elected government to deny citizenship to those that keep their debts unpaid. Of course, magic plays its role here (voodoo).

The root idea of this suggestion, is to give a bonus to skirmishes applied by this special person, called Court Bailiff. While not entirely a bad idea (as we speak for 1 person per nation) it still lacks enough arguments and is an imbalance to current skirmish system as players who owe debts will automatically start losing more. The reasoning that they owe debts, is not enough.

There is no real way to automatically collect the debts due to a mechanism and I cannot find any new ways other than the existing arrest mechanism. At most, governments could also disallow citizens from being protected from any law (loans/skirmish Insurance) and not allowed to vote at all. This however is being discussed elsewhere.

In real life it is the same. If you do not pay your debts, your nation will use violence against you to collect anything you have. It will try to take by force what you own. Back in the age of Piracy, what nations could do was to chase down Pirates, sink their ships, plunder any gold they carried and hung them. They really had no way to ever take back anything they already looted and nowhere near any fines they might have issued at them.

Therefore, we are historically correct here. Debt collection should be through violence usage. In the same time, nations should be able to clear debts. This can be made through the issue of Letter of the Marque. Which is again historically correct. Thankfully, these issues are already resolved in real life, in history.

So, the best way to improve debt collection is to let nations issue Letter of the Marque. One of the Letter of the Marque rewards can be debt clearance.

Therefore, as an example, Danik could issue a Letter of the Marque to Warrior which would say that if you sink/grab X ships/Y gold from Z enemy, your debt to Mexico will be cleared! Warrior then will have 2 possible profits: 1)Gets rid of his existing debt (in case he cares) 2)Keeps all the profit

Feedback?

[Dr Vegapunk]

just a question,,so this letter of marque (LOM) will only gave the profit to warrior or the nation too will get the percentage of the profits?

just my opinion, what if the mission change from sink/grab x ship to increase nation influence in certain port?
with this, player can have 2 option in clearing debt which is using Gc and voodoos.

[Most Lee Harmless]

I'd see such a proposal as better than the current nothing : a sort of 'workfare' where the miscreant can work off their debt undertaking missions for the nation, or, as suggested by donating 'in kind' with influence or population boosts.

but, in the end..there has to be a concrete mechanism where a nation can act to recover some funds back into its Treasury...