Let me drop some knowledge about business: Peeps are going crazy about "losing" and "gaining" money, which is completely stupid.
The (inRP) reason the aforementioned shipyard is buying scrap at such a price, is the high demand and (comparatively) low supply of that commodity. With that scrap, the shipyard is doing, what a shipyard does: selling ships. In the price of those ships, the price of the premscrap (and further manufacturing costs) are already included.
So the Shipyard does not "lose" money inRP.
The question starts at the foreign exchange (If that term is even applicable to a sector with only one currency), which is surely lost when buying stuff for "sirian credit". However, Gallia does export many goods, such as cryocubes or wine, from which foreign exchange can be gained.
By "taxing" anybody willing to supply the high demand of scrap, the GRN is effectively worsening the situation for the shipyard, as the revenue from the sales have to cover the "tax" on top of all the other expenses. It is, therefore, inRply a completely unfeasible strategy, to heavily tax people importing a good with is in high demand.
For the Americans: Current tax on gas is 14.37 ¢/L, how would you guys react if your government would increase that to 1$. So basically you would have to pay 4$ more per gallon, because your government decided to tax it (even more)?
//Edit to |nfrared: Good to see that I'm not the only one with basic knowledge about macroeconomics
