收入
税收
税收滑条有三条，分别对应贫穷阶级、中产阶级和富裕阶级的税收。税收就是简单地抽取人群的财产，过高的税收可能会减少人群满足需求的能力，甚至连必需品都无法满足。因此，税收会对人群态度产生间接影响：满足日用品需求的人群会减少其斗争性，而满足奢侈品需求的人群会增加其觉醒度。不仅如此，高税收还可能使手工业者陷入贫穷死循环。请注意，满足人群需求还涉及其他因素，包括就业和商品的市场供应。
税收效率 是指你的税吏将税法强加到人民头上的效率。基础效率为20%，可以通过某些事件和科技来改变。
有效税收比率 = 税收比率（滑动条） * 税收效率 比如说，比利时将贫穷阶层税收滑条设在50%，并且它的税收效率为20%，则有效税收比率为0.5 * 0.2 = 0.1 = 10%。
黄金
和其它商品不同，
贵金属直接铸造成为货币。1单位的贵金属转化为金钱的比例由defines.lua中的GOLD_TO_CASH_RATE定义，在《兄弟阋墙》中这个值是1.5，在《黑暗之心》中则是0.5。
关税
关税是针对进口货物的税收，意味着国家对人群和工厂在世界市场上购买的一切商品征税。因此，关税收入取决于一个国家的人口规模以及人口需求有多少不能在国内市场购买。
高关税可能会降低人群的消费能力，因为它们所需要的商品更昂贵。也许与直觉相反，高关税并没有起到贸易保护主义的作用，因为游戏机制决定了人群总是优先从国内市场购买商品。负关税可以视为由政府支付的一种补贴，以降低进口商品的成本。负关税对手工业者特别有益，因为他们的生产方式可以一直保持盈利。关税过高可能导致手工业者陷入贫穷死循环。
在国内市场购买的商品不适用关税，包括从傀儡及同势力范围国家购买的商品。更多细节参见贸易。
贷款与利息支付
主条目：Loans
当一个国家的开支超过国库的时候，就会产生一笔贷款。
国家银行是国内人群存放额外金钱（例如，当人群购买完奢侈品之后，仍有多余的金钱）的地方，发挥一种储蓄的功能。国家银行是本国贷款的第一来源，它也被用来向其他国家发放贷款。当国家银行枯竭时，贷款将从其他国家的国家银行获得。若无法再从其他国家贷款，国家开支的资金将自动减少（用红色数字表示）。
Expenses
National stockpile
This represents three basic components of gameplay: the army, the navy, and construction. Once the stockpile runs out, troops suffer, and building and units cannot be built. As of the Heart of Darkness expansion, it has been broken up into three separate sliders:
- Spending on Land units: The funding level directly correlates with the maximum organization brigades have: thus funding at 50% will limit unit organization to 50% of their maximum possible organization.
- Spending on Naval units: The funding level directly correlates with the maximum organization ships have: thus funding at 50% will limit unit organization to 50% of their maximum possible organization. It is impossible to fund navies at less than 30% of their full spending.
- Spending on constructions: This is money spent to buy the goods necessary for the construction of railroads, forts, naval bases and government built factories.
Money being spent on clipper and steamer convoys to maintain overseas holdings is also shown, listed as Overseas Maintenance.
Education
This slider determines how much your government spends on paying clergy salaries. Increasing this slider will make other POPs more likely to convert to clergymen, and make your clergymen less likely to convert to other POPS. In addition, it directly affects the nation's education efficiency: a nation spending 100% on Education will gain literacy twice as quickly as a nation spending only 50%, assuming they have the same distribution of clergymen.
Administration
This pays the salaries of bureaucrat POPs. Increasing this slider will make other POPs more likely to convert to bureaucrats, and make bureaucrats less likely to convert to other POPs. Bureaucrats are required to increase state and national administrative efficiency. This slider also increases crime fighting efficiency (the likelihood that crime "buildings" in provinces will appear or disappear) up to 39.7% at maximum.
State administrative efficiency represents government efficiency at the state level. Each state has its own level of administrative efficiency, which is based on the number of accepted culture bureaucrats per capita in the state, certain technologies that improve administrative efficiency, and the number of social reforms that have been passed. Each social reform increases the number of bureaucrats required for 100% efficiency by 0.2% of the state population.
National administrative efficiency represents the overall government efficiency of the entire nation. This affects the efficiency of enforcing tariffs and fighting crime. It also affects the amount of goods required to build and maintain factories, military units, and province infrastructure. At 0% efficiency, the amount of goods needed is doubled. The most important thing is that high national administrative efficiency boosts POP promotion, and is therefore a must if you need to fill your factories. Like state efficiency, national efficiency is based on the number of accepted culture bureaucrats per capita in the entire nation, technologies that improve administrative efficiency, and the number of social reforms that have been passed.
Social spending
This determines how much your government spends supporting its various social reforms. Short funding social reforms increases the militancy of POPs.
Military spending
This is the amount of money that a nation pays its soldier and officer POPs. At 100% funding, soldier POPs will promote to 5% of the population, while officers will promote to 0.2% of the population. This indirectly affects leadership points since officer POPs generate leadership.
Industrial subsidies
This allows the government to guarantee that a factory will not run a loss: any negative difference between income and expense is made up by the government. Subsidies are only applied when a factory is running at a loss. Subsidies are controlled per factory from the production screen; this figure shows the total amount spent on them.
Bankruptcy
主条目：Loans
If a nation cannot pay the interest on loans taken out, it will go into Default. Prolonged default will cause bankruptcy. This will anger all POPs who had their savings in the national bank, and it will also allow any nation that loaned money to the bankrupt nation a Casus belli. Nations in bankruptcy also lose a large amount of prestige and gain a loan_interest modifier of 0.5.
Discrepancies
There is a possible discrepancy between projected balance (on the budget) screen and the actual income (on the budget ribbon) in game. This often happens when the player has ordered a number of buildings and/or units for which not all necessary resources are readily available (for example because there is a shortage of the goods, or the player is too low in the buying order to acquire them). The budget screen will always assume all purchases are made, irrespective of whether or not the goods can actually be bought. The budget ribbon at the top of the UI will only shows the balance after all purchases have been made. This can lead to the situation where a country can be in deficit on the budget screen, but shows a surplus on the budget ribbon. In these cases the budget ribbon gives the accurate income.