Life Dungeon Game

Federal taxes are divided into two types: federal taxes, which are paid directly to the federal government, and city taxes, which are paid to cities.

Tax revenue is an important source of funding for the municipal government. Large monopoly groups and related industries around them typically contribute a significant amount of tax revenue to the municipal government.

For example, nearly 35% of the tax revenue in Kaya City comes from the Nolanca Group and its subsidiaries and supply chain companies.

In Rock City, the mining consortium pays less than 5% of the city's total tax revenue. They lobby legislators, amend laws, and relocate their group's registration to avoid paying even a penny more in taxes.

They took the most benefits from the city, but bore the least responsibility.

The mining consortium's main businesses are all in Rock City, but the mining consortium registered in Rock City is only a 'subsidiary'. Its 'parent company' is located in the small city of Bennock to the west, which has the lowest federal corporate income tax rate.

The city government needs to maintain its budget and cannot rely on the mining conglomerate.

Once taxes are collected, the Rock City government has no choice but to increase taxes on ordinary citizens.

One important source of revenue for the municipal government is consumption tax.

Federal sales tax is an indirect tax; the price of a product and the tax amount are listed together, and the tax is paid together with the purchase price.

The consumption tax rates vary from city to city, but none of them are too high. For example, it is 5% in Dawn City, 6% in Kaya City, and 9% in Rock City, which is the highest in the entire Federation.

High tax rates make the same items much more expensive to buy in Rock than in other cities.

This gave rise to a thriving smuggling industry and street stalls selling smuggled goods. These stalls were not registered with the government and therefore did not pay taxes.

Because they save on costs such as rent and don't pay taxes, the same items sold at street stalls are 20-30% cheaper than in regular stores.

The large number of street stalls formed markets, and the existence of these markets made it even more difficult for the municipal government to collect taxes.

The previous mayor, from the Elijah party, violently shut down these markets, causing his approval ratings to plummet. The current mayor seized the opportunity to win the election with slogans such as tax cuts and opening up markets.

After taking office, he kept his promise and opened up some markets and reduced taxes. These markets were under the control of the Ice Wolf Gang. Although the market stalls did not have to pay taxes, they had to pay the Ice Wolf Gang a 'stall fee'.

This portion of tax revenue, which should have been allocated to the municipal government, was instead given to the Ice Wolf Gang and then ended up in the pockets of the mining conglomerate.

These were all things He Ao found casually online.

Finding information about the Ice Wolf Gang is a bit difficult, but it's not impossible.

That's all.

However, He Ao could basically guess what happened next. As the city government's revenue declined, a large number of government employees faced the risk of unemployment or pay cuts, and even the city defense force's budget was facing reductions.

At this point, it would be even easier and more convenient for the mayor to manipulate the mining conglomerate to infiltrate the municipal government and the city defense forces.

He Ao browsed through the online materials but couldn't find any more useful information. He originally wanted to search for information about the mayor, but he found only some news about the mayor's election and obviously filtered praise articles.

There was no further information about the mayor's past, nor any detailed video footage of him.

He Ao put down the bracelet and glanced at the sky.

It was getting dark.

The mercenary group came and went several times, but finding someone in the chaotic market was like looking for a needle in a haystack, let alone a powerful and agile superhuman like He Ao.

There were several markets nearby, and Albert couldn't be sure if Heo was hiding in one of them, or which market. After several rounds of searching, the number of people searching gradually decreased.

He mingled with the crowd leaving the market and slowly walked out of it.

The surrounding area consisted of old buildings and dim streetlights.

Markets are usually located in older urban areas. There are no markets in the bustling city center, where the city's small middle class and small factory owners live.

He Ao left the crowd, turned into a small alley, and after walking a few steps, he heard a chaotic sound of footsteps and shouts.

“My husband is really not a criminal, and he did not incite the miners to strike.”

Please, let us go...

A woman's voice, tinged with sobs, came from the other end of the alley. He Ao slowly walked over and leaned against the shadows.

"I don't care if he is or not. Either pay up or come with us."

The speaker was a somewhat hoarse male voice.

He Ao looked up and saw several men dressed in simple clothes and smoking cigarettes dragging a man in drab miner's clothes.

The man looked like he had just come back from the mine; he hadn't even had time to change his clothes.

A woman is crying and grabbing a man's hand.

"I'll fight you."

A childish voice came from behind the woman, and a boy of about twelve or thirteen years old rushed out of the room, holding an iron rod in his hand.

"Get out of here," the man said, raising his foot and kicking the little boy, sending him flying and crashing into the wall. "You little brat."

"Child, child..."

The woman rushed over to check on the child's body.

"elder brother"

"Big Brother"

"brother"

Several even smaller children ran out of the house.

“You’re quite prolific,” the man who lifted his foot chuckled, a cigarette dangling from his lips. “We still have some older ones, over fifteen who can work. The prison boss offered us a price; sending in a strong laborer is a guaranteed income. Yours are too young; they won’t be able to work. Send us an older one.”

"Hahaha."

The people around him burst into wild laughter.

"You bunch of beasts."

The woman reached out to protect the child and cursed.

"You bastards, I'll fight you to the death!"

The captured miner man's face turned bright red as he struggled fiercely.

However, no matter what he did, he could not break free from the grip of the several strong men. Like a drowning man, he struggled frantically and chaotically, but to no avail.

"Hey, you're getting cocky now."

Seeing how hard he was struggling, one of them reached out and grabbed his neck, and the man's face immediately turned blue and purple.

"Brothers, go easy on them, don't kill them," the man with the cigarette said hurriedly. "We need to make money by killing the living. We didn't get paid for the ones we crippled or killed this afternoon."

"It's boring."

The person who had reached out to grab his neck let go and spat.

"You bastards!"

The woman beside her quickly shielded the child behind her.

"Let's go, let's hurry up and hand over the person to the next company."

The man with the cigarette chuckled and blew the still-sparkling cigarette butt towards the woman's cheek.

The cigarette butt was moving extremely fast, tumbling through the air, and was about to land on the woman's face in an instant.

Just then, two white fingers reached out from the void and caught the cigarette.

"Littering is a violation of urban management regulations."

He Ao pinched the cigarette butt in the back of his hand, straightened up, and looked at the man in front of him.

"Where did you come from, daring to teach me how to do things? Oh, you want to save them? Are you also a member of the migrant worker mutual aid society?"

The man spat, took a half step back, and shouted, "Brothers, we've got a job! This guy's got some big meat on him, worth a good amount of money."

He looked at He Ao and laughed, "Kid, this isn't how you become a hero. Once you're labeled a member of the miners' mutual aid association, you can't go wherever you want."

The men behind him smiled, tossed the exhausted miner to the ground, rolled up their sleeves, and strode over.

.

He shrugged and didn't say anything.

He really was a member of the miners' mutual aid society.

The first to arrive was the man who had just choked her. He was tall and strong, and when he threw a punch, a fierce gust of wind could be heard.

The people behind him followed suit and made their moves.

boom--

The man who threw the first punch was sent flying, crashing into a high wall behind him, spitting out blood and barely breathing.

The others barely had time to react before they were also sent flying, crashing into the wall and falling to the ground.

He Ao withdrew his foot and looked at the arrogant man in front of him. Not only had this guy not made a move, he had even taken a step back.

"My lord, my lord, it's my fault for being blind. My eyes are located in the middle of my buttocks..."

The man glanced at He Ao, then at his brothers lying on the ground, swallowed hard, took two steps back, and said in a trembling voice.

What did I just say?

He looked at him calmly.

"I..." The man paused for a moment, looked at the cigarette butt in He Ao's hand, and quickly said, "Don't litter."

"Open your mouth."

He Ao glanced at her.

The man opened his mouth.

A smoldering cigarette butt was shoved into his mouth, producing a puff of smoke and a hissing sound.

He waved his hand, indicating that he could leave.

The man didn't even dare to cry out in pain; he bowed and scraped as he pulled the few who could still get up away and scrambled away.

He Ao watched their retreating figures, his gaze slightly narrowed. These people's movements were not standardized, clearly indicating that they had not received unified military training. They also had tattoos on their bodies, suggesting that they were not members of the city defense force, but rather members of the Ice Wolf Gang.

While the city defense forces at least exercised some restraint in searching the miners' mutual aid society, the Ice Wolf Gang was completely out of control.

After Vincent's death, the Ice Wolf Gang should have also entered the mayor's sphere of influence.

What are the mayor and the mining conglomerate trying to do?

"You are..."