Usually, when the powers that be plan to change the tax system, there is a lot of publicity in the press about it. Opinion magazines listing the pro's and cons of the proposals, people protesting changes, lobbyists trying to turn the process in a direction which suits their purposes.

None of that in Torn City.

This morning, the population woke up, got out of bed. A minority bothered to take a shower before taking breakfast and reading the paper. That's when the shock came: the leading article was about a tax change, effective immediately.

In the old tax system, the owner of a house had to pay the taxes. Now, the tax is paid by the person living in the house. This could be a tennant.

As it seems, with the taxation change, no taxes are paid for houses which are vacant. 

Analysts are unsure about the reason for this change. Why would the government willingly give up the taxes which it used to get on vacant housing? And would this not greatly affect the inflation rates, now that less money is taken from the hands of the Torn City residents?

Many questions are popping up, answers are -yet- not available. 

But the citizens don't care, as they now spend the money they had reserved taxes on wild parties. Parties where, as the rumours go, drugs are available like sweets in a children's paradise.

In an attempt to revitalize the entire faction warfare concept, Chedburn has presented the community with a reorganisation proposal which changes the way factions work in a fundamental way.

 The most notable feature would be the removal of peaceful factions, because `With this system, there is no need for it at all. You don't have to war anyone if you don't want to. Big factions who pick on you, will gain very little, and you will lose even less. It's impossible for your faction to die unless the opposing faction is willing to go out of it's way for weeks, at no benefit to itself, just to kill it.´

In the proposal, the age old link between respect lost and respect gained is removed, making it possible that the attacking faction gains more respect than it takes from the defending one. Furthermore, Chedburn proposes the feature to `claim victory´ based on how the war went. But even if nobody claims victory, at some point, you will either win, or lose, the war, based on the respect gained/lost.

If someone doesn't feel like warring back, they will, in the view of Chedburn lose 1/16th of their respect: 'Wars on factions who are not willing to fight back will be over very quickly. The losing faction will lose I think: 1 / 16th of their respect (because of the new warring system), and a NAP will be created between the factions.'

Mass warring would also be a thing of the past, as he plans on putting in a cap on the number of wars you can get your faction in. According to Chedburn[1] five would be enough.

Community responses to the proposal are quite positive at this time, so it is not unlikely we will see these changes happening "soonish".