<HollyhockGod> So! It's become clear that Ms. Ruben owes a Noble's worth in taxes, but has no possessions other than a vast and supernal soul, a mastery of the pure arts, and technically, an Imperator.
<HollyhockGod> Well, it was the last to be made, so there were only seven oysters left to put into it.
<HollyhockGod> So it was honestly a beef pot pie.
<Sarabande> I would say it is rather more accurate that the Imperator possesses Hannah. ;-)
<Darryl_Collins> Either way, I don't think we can accept Imperators as payment.
<HollyhockGod> It's a problem.
<HollyhockGod> The punishment for non-payment of taxes is to have each of your organs nailed to a different piece of the Weirding Wall until the arrival of the Fourth Age.
<Vauncey> Are we allowed to tax Imperators directly?
<Vauncey> It seems like she might genuinely not know anything about it.
<HollyhockGod> Good question.
<HollyhockGod> Well, she ought to be aware that Powers have to pay taxes!
<Sarabande> hmm.
<HollyhockGod> I dunno, maybe she just assumed you can get out of paying taxes by not having any property.
<Vauncey> Oh, are the taxes unrelated to the chancel? Hmmm.
<Sarabande> People in our organisation presumably need paying.
<HollyhockGod> There's taxes on the Chancel, but there's personal tax as well.
<Sarabande> It occurs to us that we may be able to tax Hannah some Ecstasy with which to pay other people!
<HollyhockGod> I mean, she's receiving a vast income of divine powers.
<Vauncey> Does she not get paid for her services in things like the opera, then?
<Darryl_Collins> How much does she owe in back taxes, Vauncey?
<HollyhockGod> No. I think she's basically a wandering muse.
<Vauncey> We could get people to pay her, then get her to pay us.
<Darryl_Collins> Maybe we could charge her for coupons, redeemable for ecstacy?
<HollyhockGod> It seems like she just uses her powers to benefit other people without expecting anything in return, while scorning material goods.
<Darryl_Collins> Surely a little ecstacy is worth something.
<Vauncey> Well, that won't do.
<Vauncey> We will have to figure out some sort of payment plan! Hopefully she is still around after the opera.
<Vauncey> http://i.imgur.com/cok4nUN.png Look at this cat.
<Darryl_Collins> That is very clearly a cat.
<Vauncey> We find this out by going over her records after we depart, I imagine? We will have to try to meet up with her after the opera. Is she still around then?
<Darryl_Collins> Did she keep my card? It's got a tracking device.
<Nomen> I like the idea of making people pay her so she has to pay us
<Nomen> Nomen is gonna get into that
<Nomen> He'll be all schneaky schneaky don't worry
- Sarabande suggests cutting out the middle man and getting people to pay directly into a Hannah's Taxes Fund.
<Sarabande> That way everyone's happy!
<Sarabande> Hannah eschews material possessions, the people feel like they're giving something back, and we get the taxes we need!
<HollyhockGod> I'll presume you can find her for the time being.
<Darryl_Collins> That's an interesting idea. If we put a mystic levy on Hannah so that the people whose lives she touches pay a small amount directly into her tariff, then she'll never even know she's being taxed!
<Darryl_Collins> Everyone wins, especially us
<Nomen> I think people are SUPPOSED to know they're veing taxed
<Nomen> Careful there, we might weaken Vauncey's estate
<Vauncey> I could probably teach her about taxation.
<Vauncey> She might be cross, though.
<Darryl_Collins> I suppose we ought to defer to Vauncey on this one
<Vauncey> What kinds of intangibles can we accept as payment?
<HollyhockGod> I suppose it's up to you?
<Vauncey> Perhaps the services she renders have some kind of off-the-books compensation that we should be looking at.
<HollyhockGod> I mean, this is supposed to finance your beekeeping operation.
<HollyhockGod> So your combined take from everybody has to support you.
<Darryl_Collins> I still think she could probably pay this with vouchers of some kind.
<Vauncey> Well, we should definitely sit down with her and do her taxes, so she can see what the process looks like. Possibly we can set up some kind of automated process to garnish the gratitude she receives, or work out a payment plan in terms of ecstasy.
<Sarabande> All it really requires is for her to know it's happening, after all.
<Vauncey> If worst comes to worst I could shift her taxes to somebody else for the time being and have her owe them, but that seems distasteful.
<HollyhockGod> Hannah regards the notion of garnishing people's gratitude as weird.
<HollyhockGod> "That's weird," she says.
<Vauncey> Vauncey shows her the tabulations by way of explanation. "Everything has a value," he says. "That's how the gears stay oiled, eh? Tell me, are you receiving any other sort of payment for your services here at the opera cave?"
<HollyhockGod> "I don't do things to get paid," she says. "That would be… unclean? I dunno. I mean, I guess people should get paid if they need to eat and stuff, which I don't."
- Sarabande hums. "This is the purpose of our taxes - the Heavenly Bees and their keepers need to be looked after."
<HollyhockGod> "I guess that seems… important?" Hannah says, doubtfully.
<Sarabande> "Absolutely," Sarabande hums.
<Sarabande> (And that is an action, which I should numbers some numbers at.)(
<Darryl_Collins> "If the bees aren't looked after, how can the World Ash be pollinated?"
<HollyhockGod> >** HANNAH is considering your offer!
<HollyhockGod> >** HANNAH is inclined to cooperate.
<Sarabande> That's a fortunate coincidence!
<HollyhockGod> "I guess I could spot you some ecstatic experience," she says. "I mean, I'm not sure how it's going to help you in tax collection or beekeepin'."
<HollyhockGod> "I mean, obviously it's pretty great."
- Vauncey taps out a staccato beat on an accounting calculator one-handed, then slides it over for Hannah to see. "Well, Nobles of our class owe this much per year for general upkeep — if you aren't interested in payment otherwise, you could just ask for enough to make the payments, but it's only reasonable to pass on the necessary costs." He tilts his head. "If you aren't comfortable
- Vauncey with that, we could possibly work out some sort of payment plan based on the services your Estate could provide." A pause. "I will ened to look up the exchange on that."
<HollyhockGod> Hm, could you measure that in udi?
<HollyhockGod> Or possibly the ur-um?
<HollyhockGod> Oh, wait, it's obviously the buddhitanka.
<HollyhockGod> It's pinned to the value of awareness of the world.
<Vauncey> Ah, that's good news! That's been high lately.
<Vauncey> "I believe we can make an arrangement, then. But do keep it in mind for the future! There's no shame in asking for payment for services rendered." He smiles warmly and claps his ledger shut. "Now then — I don't suppose you could provide ecstatic experiences in a fungible, transportable form, do you? That would simplify matters considerably."
<HollyhockGod> That's /almost/ what a buddhitanka is.
<HollyhockGod> I'm not sure how easy it would be to talk her into becoming a source of abstract currency, though.
<HollyhockGod> For now, you convince her to pay you in a large quantity of satori tea.
<Vauncey> It's really just an accounting convenience.
- HollyhockGod probably should have introduced an additional wrinkle to this story.
<Vauncey> Well, we still don't know what's up with the chancel.
<Vauncey> That is highly irregular!
<Vauncey> But nothing blew up and nobody died, so that's good.
<Vauncey> Compliance makes everyone happy.
<Vauncey> This does make me wonder if perhaps we should produce some kind of PSA for Nobles.
<Vauncey> To help clarify responsibilities under the tax code!
<HollyhockGod> My intention was that the vastness of her soul more or less devoured her Imperator when he tried to claim her as a Power.
<Sarabande> fweep. I am extremely tired - are we about wrapped up for tonight?
<Vauncey> Ah, so he never got around to making the chancel?
<HollyhockGod> I think so. I apologize for being slightly absent for pie-based reasons.
<Vauncey> I wonder if vast souls are more taxable.
<HollyhockGod> Arguably there's an entire world in her soul! Although not one that would be easy to value or distribute.
<Vauncey> is there like a square footage standard?
- Vauncey is now known as Gayo
<HollyhockGod> You could write one into the Code.
<HollyhockGod> Although that would put you into competition with Lucifer.
<Gayo> Well, we can form a committee to investigate the matter and produce a green paper, anyway.
- Sarabande is now known as MorkaisChosen
<Gayo> We are really bad at investigating things but that went pretty wel
<Gayo> l.
<HollyhockGod> I should probably introduce a more complex mystery.
<Gayo> haha well
<HollyhockGod> That would reward investigation.
<Gayo> you threw us a lot of bones here
<Gayo> lord knows how long it would have taken us to explicitly get all that information
<HollyhockGod> In this case it was more a matter of "how are you going to get taxes out of this goddess who disdains wealth?"
<Gayo> bone tax.
<MorkaisChosen> right
<MorkaisChosen> bedtime!
<MorkaisChosen> night all!
<HollyhockGod> I should have thrown a few more wrinkles in, like some other gods who are explicit renegades against Entropy's law trying to push her the other way.
<Gayo> The normal thing to do would be to get people to pay her for whatever it is she does.
<Gayo> She should look into that!
- HollyhockGod reads a bit more into the manual after looking up buddhitanka,.
<HollyhockGod> Huh, the Robber's Order is perfect for this campaign and I wish I'd remembered that so I could have named you as members.
<HollyhockGod> Oh, well, they can be rivals.
- Darryl_Collins is now known as Rimblade
<Gayo> We should look into establishing a formal currency usable specifically to pay taxes.
<Gayo> that is basically what state fiat currencies are!
<Gayo> then we can just use that to buy things needed for bees in a just-in-time capacity.
<HollyhockGod> The main thing about Noble currencies is that they're designed so that Nobles won't bankrupt mortal economies by suddenly fiating fifty trillion dollars into existence.
<HollyhockGod> So they're mostly pinned to the value of abstract concepts.
<Rimblade> I think we should be happy to get various abstract things
<Rimblade> We can leverage some ecstacy into things which help bees!