Tax penalty is too high

[Prinkas]

Here is a picture of the bills. As you can see, it's the Tax penalties that are really high. It wasn't like that the first time they paid the bills, but the last 2 times they have been like this.

I was playing on the home lot when I received the bills.

[Prinkas]

Thanks, I will try this and see if it changes anything!

[Prinkas]

Another thing I've been thinking about is whether it could be all the paintings they have hanging around the house?

One of the students is an Art Major and paints a lot, so I've been putting all his paintings on the walls.

[crinrict]

@Prinkas I'm merging your post with the other thread on high bills which has become a bit of a collection for what is high

Did you get any notifications what the tax penalties are for ?

[Prinkas]

Thanks for looking into it. Seems I'm not the only one having issues?

To answer your question: I did not get any notification of why the tax penalty is high. Iactually pay a lot of attention to it because the N.A.Ps have affected my bills before lol.

Anyway, I played with another household and they were on vacation (more specifically at a club) while they received their bills. Their bills are also extremely high and don't add up. I've attached a picture.

[crinrict]

@Prinkas The high bills on vacation seems to be a separate issue: https://answers.ea.com/t5/Bug-Reports/NEEDS-INPUT-OR-JA-Very-High-Household-Bills-While-On-Vacation/...

You get charged for the vacation lot as well.

[kessly]

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What is your current game version number? 1.70.84.1020
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? all but Batuu and Maschino
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? checking the utility bill/or paying the utility bill
What happens when the bug occurs? The amount of electricity is extremely high,
What do you expect to see? High power bill even when there are no electronics on the lot
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Not now. I've removed them.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Yes
Please describe the patch or change you made. I noticed this with the Snowy Escape pack

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I have a sim on a lot with pretty much nothing on it, rags to riches challenge, and her electricity bill is over 200 used power when she has no electronics to be using power. I noticed this with another household but i thought they were just keeping their radio and other electronics on but even with adding more solar panels it was extremally high for a tiny house with 3 sims. 

[valohim666]

Just a note to anyone with high lot taxes, your personal and household inventories affect lot taxes. Just as an example I'll list my current lot taxes, then how much they are with 100 dragon fruit added to my inventory, and finally how much it is after selling those dragon fruits.

Current lot taxes: 5,049

With 100 dragon fruit (perfect quality) in personal inventory: 11,826

After selling dragon fruits: 8,420

So as you can see having those dragon fruit more than doubled my lot taxes, which means putting a lot of valuable items in your inventories could really affect your lot taxes and significantly raise your bills.

The taxes do seem glitched though. As you can see there is still an extra 3,000 on my taxes even after selling the fruit. It did seem to go back down the next day once my plants grew more fruit, but after saving and reloading the taxes went back up to 8,000 then back to 11,000 after selling the fruit. After saving and reloading again, the taxes went back to 8,000. Now each day when my plants produce fruit the taxes drop back to normal, but if I sell the fruit the taxes jump back up to 8,000.

By the way, why do items in your inventories count towards your taxes? That would be like forcing someone in real life to pay more for rent because they just bought some chewing gum and had it in their pocket.

EDIT: Bills just got delivered, and they were over 8,000. It also glitched and showed that I had unpaid bills even though I didn't. Before paying the bills it showed the total as being double what I actually paid, and after paying it the unpaid part just disappeared. So yeah yet another bill related problem. Now my fruits aren't growing again which means my bills won't go back to normal, and I'm stuck paying 3,000 more than I should be.

[KeitaDarkwolf]

Product: The Sims 4
Platform:PC
Which language are you playing the game in? English
How often does the bug occur? Every time (100%)
What is your current game version number? 1.70.84.1020
What expansions, game packs, and stuff packs do you have installed? All of them
Steps: How can we find the bug ourselves? When the bills come in the mail.
What happens when the bug occurs? Bills seem to vary unreasonably for no apparent reason
What do you expect to see? Bill consistency
Have you installed any customization with the game, e.g. Custom Content or Mods? Not now. I've removed them for this save.
Did this issue appear after a specific patch or change you made to your system? Yes
Please describe the patch or change you made. Paranormal

I'm not sure if the patch actually caused this or not. There are several things wrong here.

I took my Sims on vacation after they started getting "Stressed from work - Needs vacation badly!" buffs. While on vacation, I got a bill that was much higher than I expected, but didn't seem unreasonable given the value of their house and the fact that they were not in compliance with the 'Eco-friendly appliances' NAP. However, no additional lot charges were shown on the bill. I didn't expect any since their vacation extended to 7 days. They weren't home to use electricity or water. That said, the penalty for being in non-compliance was not shown.

Upon returning home after paying the bill, my Sims kept getting "Needs vacation badly!" buffs. I figured it had something to do with their accumulated vacation days. They had well over 20 days available. So I decided to just let them go on vacation again. Before I took them on that second vacation, I had them upgrade all their appliances to be eco-friendly. I expected that would take care of the high bills.

WRONG!

While on vacation, they receive a bill that's more than TWICE as much as the previous bill. There are no plants on the lot, and I haven't changed the value the lot through build/buy. The only thing that's different is that the appliances were upgraded to be eco-friendly. And for that, the bills are suddenly twice as high?

It makes no sense... S11,000 to S27,000 is a HUGE jump when I'm used to them having bills around S8000.

 I never had issues with bills before now.

EDIT: I started this save after Snowy Escape was released, and no mods were run in this save.

[catatemyname]

Even though no one has posted here in a while, I hope it's okay for me to ask: is there any info, anywhere, on how exactly bills are calculated? I haven't played in a while and suddenly the bills are so high my sims are struggling to keep up. So not only the power and water consumption count, as well as the lot size, but also every single thing the sims own, even if it's not placed anywhere on the lot? I have some sim families that still live in starter homes, without much fancy stuff, only the most basic appliances and furniture, and the bills still come up to several thousand. I thought to save some money by placing solar panels, but it seems that the object value offsets the money saved on electricity big time, so I end up having even higher bills. for one particular family it's become a constant struggle to survive, since it's a teen taking care of a toddler sibling, no parents. And all the while I am not sure if it is as intended or buggy. If I knew it was a bug, I would just calculate the right bills by myself and compensate the amounts paid through cheats, since I really don't want to use mods. Right now the bills make me scared to even buy new stuff for any family that isn't swimming in money because I am afraid the bills will suddenly become more than the family can pay. Not to mention that it is making it even more difficult for any family to ever be able to afford an expensive home because they won't be able to pay the bills.