Ideal tax policy

[Boltzmann's Brain]

I've always wondered if it's generally better to always set your taxes to very high, whenever possible in order to squeeze out as much income as possible at a given time, or is it better to always have them low, helping the settlements grow, which in turn makes the number of taxpayers grow faster, thus generating more income in the long run. Not to mention it helps upgrading them faster. Recently I've been leaning towards the latter strategy in my games.

What do you think?

[Vlad Dracul]

I prefer to keep them at low until my towns develop to huge cities (raise them only if there is a financial emergency and only temporary), after that I set them as high as the public order allows me to.
Low tax level helps with increasing population, add to that a chivalry governor and you'll see those settlements really blooming.
You'll gain more on the long run if you do it this way.

[Gigantus]

Give the job to the AI (only collecting, obviously, not spending) - in my experience no one is better in squeezing money out of the peasantry.

Just do a quick round of the settlements every 4-5 turns in case unrest gets a bit too high. Simply select one settlement and then use the arrow keys at the name display, bottom right of UI, to jump from one to the next.