The Qiongshan County Grain Collection Bureau is located in the northwest corner of the Qiongzhou Prefectural Government Office in the county. This place was originally the Qiongzhou Taxation Department. Although Cheng Dong did not have the ability to set up a complete taxation bureau team for every county, the structure of the taxation bureau.
He has formulated the system and regulations long ago. Qiongshan County just follows them.
The original Yamen main hall has been converted into a collection hall - the newly made wooden counter has been installed, part of the tiles on the roof has been lifted, skylights have been installed, and long windows have been opened on the walls to allow enough collection.
On the one hand, this is to provide sufficient lighting and save candle oil. In addition, according to the theory of psychologist Jiang Qiuyan, light can enhance people's sense of shame - a dark environment makes it easier for people to do bad things with peace of mind.
.
There are many filing cabinets and drawers installed against the wall, and several clerks are pasting stickers. Taxation is based on the administrative division of "city" as the basic unit, and it is planned to use the town as the unit in the future.
Liu Xiang walked around the tax bureau and looked at a pair of large lanterns hanging in front of the gate. They were old items from the yamen. Now they have been cleaned and re-pasted with paper: One is for Qiongshan County's grain collection.
Bureau, and the other is a huge word "tax", which has a very coercive feel.
A large number of blank tax vouchers, account books and official documents shipped from Lingao Printing Factory were stacked in boxes in the locked flower hall. Chen Ce, the veteran tax commissioner sent from Lingao, was preparing for a group of new recruits from the local area.
The tax collectors gave lectures. The first purpose of Chen Yuanlao's visit to Qiongshan was to establish the Delong Qiongshan Branch, and the second was to assist in the establishment of the Qiongshan Taxation Bureau and to preside over the summer tax collection work.
When Chen Ce returned to the office after class, Liu Xiang discussed with him his idea of collecting corvee silver from large households.
"This amount of dingyin is considerable. In the past, many large gentry households did not pay or paid less. It makes no sense to ask the common people to bear the burden after a storm. So this time I plan to allocate all the dingyin to them.
"
Chen Ce nodded: "I agree with this, but in what name?"
Liu Xiang was puzzled: "What name do we need? We are the government, so what name does the government need to collect taxes?"
"You raise the electricity and water bills and you still use the banner of environmental protection. You are so blatantly taking money from the people and you don't even need a name..." Chen Ce said with a smile, "You still need a name. Otherwise, why would people ask you?
Originally everyone had to pay, but now only big households have to pay? Isn’t this bullying?”
Liu Xiang said: "But in the past, the big gentry households paid very little or did not pay at all. Why? Aren't they bullying others?"
"This is different," Chen Ce shook his head, "Your concept of doing things according to the law and governing the country according to the law is not strong..." He explained that in the past, although the big gentry households did not pay or paid less, they all had certain basis.
For example, those with meritorious service are exempted from some corvee as usual. Although some large households do not have meritorious service, they have a lot of land and few people. According to the system of the Ming Dynasty, the corvee burden will naturally be less. Of course, in actual implementation, there are many other
patterns.
"Now that you want to take advantage of the rich and exempt the poor, you also have to come up with a new regulation, so that people can think that there is a law to follow, instead of just saying it as a law."
"So complicated?" Liu Xiang thought, this guy couldn't be from the law club, right? He talks about governing the country according to the law.
Chen Ce smiled and began to introduce his progressive taxation method.
The progressive system is not unfamiliar to the elders, because almost most of the elders have paid income tax, and the income tax is a progressive system. The general idea is that the more income you have, the more you pay.
"Using the progressive tax rate system, you can legitimately put the burden on the heads of large households and gentry. If the preferential treatment of gentry here in the past was the system of the Ming Dynasty, then the progressive system is the system of our Senate. This
It’s not like they don’t understand.”
According to Chen Ce's thinking: the current accounts of dingyin collected by each county are actually a confusing account with no basis at all. The land situation in each county has become quite clear after clearing the land, so dingyin and miscellaneous taxes
All can be calculated based on the amount of land.
"The clearest local data we have now is actually the number of acres and household registration in each county. It is safest to collect the summer tax based on this, and no one has much to say. Secondly, because next year's new tax system has prepared a smooth transition.
"Chen Ce said, "No one has anything to say - after all, we have taken care of the interests of most people. People are not fools and know who is good to them."
"It makes sense." Liu Xiang nodded repeatedly, "But the land varies in size, and the land with more land does not necessarily mean the income will be more..."
"Isn't the land fertility and fertility specifically recorded in the register?" Chen Ce said confidently, "If we want to simplify it a bit, we can calculate it based on the actual annual output."
Finally, according to Chen Ce's design, the summer tax in Qiongshan County was levied based on the number of acres. First, the average yield per mu in Qiongshan County was calculated based on the newly acquired farmland registration book. All yields per mu were above and below this average yield.
10 fields are all counted as "standard acres". The number of fields collected for taxation is calculated according to "standard acres". Other excess and insufficient fields are calculated as standard acres according to a certain formula.
"Are we just sharing the same land?" Liu Xiang suddenly asked after seeing his specific plan.
"You're right, what we did was to spread the family over a small family. Of course, the method is not the same as in the old days." Chen Ce laughed, "Look, everything we did today can be added to the middle school history textbooks in the future.
I’m gone. I don’t need to give this honor to Fourth Master anymore.”
The specific expropriation unit is based on "household" as the calculation standard. All landless households or those whose average land occupation per household does not exceed 20 standard acres will be exempted from Dingyin. Those exceeding 20 standard acres will be divided into 13 levels, with occupation standards
The more acres there are, the higher the payment ratio will be.
Chen Ce also formulated a series of preferential and exemption policies. As usual, those who serve in the military, serve as public servants, and die due to disability on duty are exempted from taxation. In addition, those who join the Tiandi Society and send their children to study in Lingao are also exempted.
Certain exemptions.
"If you are willing, you can even give some relief to the gentry and scholars of the Ming Dynasty..."
"What the fourth master didn't do back then, we won't do it anymore." Liu Xiang shook his head repeatedly, "The original purpose was to get money from them, what fun would it be if we cut the tax or exempt it."
"You, go and calculate immediately. According to this tax rate table, what is the average burden of each household and what is the total tax amount." Chen Ce asked a clerk he brought with him, "Tell them, you don't need to be very detailed, first give a rough outline."
Come up with the numbers."
The clerk went immediately. A few minutes later, the abacus in the second hall began to crackle, and it was as dense as rain. There were more than a dozen abacus masters gathered in the second hall-it was Chen Ce who brought finance from Lingao.
The members of the abacus team in the Computational Department of the General Manager's Department are all clerks and clerks in the second-level households of the prefecture and county. Although these people are all bad and have many crooked skills, they are very good at abacus. Cheng Dong
So they gathered all these people into an abacus team, which was responsible for preparing the abacus according to the issues issued by the Finance Director's Department. At first, they were a little dishonest. Some were secretly selling data, and some were pretending to be fake. In the end,
After one was hanged, sent to Nanbao, and several were sent to Sanya mines for unrestricted labor reform, the abacus team not only became more professional, but also became more "reliable" politically.
As for other miscellaneous taxes, Chen Ce believes that they can be postponed for a while. The fishery tax is now collected every day, and it is not appropriate for the county to collect it repeatedly. Salt is already a monopoly, so there is no need to collect it again at the consumption stage; commercial tax has a certain limit.
potential.
"...Our current goal is to stimulate the development of industry and commerce, and commercial taxes can be appropriately reduced or exempted," Liu Xiang said. "Originally, industrial and commercial taxes are very small, so we might as well not levy them at all."
"Since it's not much, it's better to continue to levy taxes." Chen Ce said, "Don't let industrial and commercial households take it for granted that they don't pay taxes, otherwise there will be a huge backlash if taxes are levied in the future."
"Okay. Fortunately, the burden on industrial and commercial households is not big."
"Not only is the burden not big, the tax rate is simply no burden." Chen Ce said, "In my opinion, industrial and commercial households are almost exempt from tax... The tax authorities of Ming Dynasty can be called a coffee table - the squeeze efficiency is the highest among civilized countries in the world.
behind."
In Japan during the same period, the height of the stone could reach 22 million shi. Under the personal auspices of Emperor Wanli, who was known as the "most greedy", the Ming Dynasty was able to generate an annual income of 20 million taels of silver. Even at the price of rice at the time, this amount was
The total income is only 50 million dan. There are already complaints and people are dying of hunger everywhere. This shows that the execution ability of its administrative agencies is poor.
Liu Xiang shook his head: "Your opinion is absolutely true. The formal burden of industrial and commercial households on the Ming government is not large, but the actual burden is not small: sometimes they have to pay for the government comprador, and sometimes they have to deal with apportionments. But most of this money falls into
Guan'er's personal pockets."
"Aren't the officials of the Ming Dynasty unable to blackmail them now?" Chen Ce said, "So we should improve it. As long as the total burden is reduced and taxes are paid clearly, industrial and commercial households will still welcome it."
Chen Ce knows that there are many types of industrial and commercial taxes, and many of them are indirect turnover taxes, which are less stressful to collect and are the main tax source to increase tax revenue. This issue has been discussed many times at the recent finance and finance meeting in Wudaokou, including deed tax and slaughter tax.
, business tax is within the scope of preparation for collection.
"We will discuss this later." Liu Xiang interrupted him, "Now I want to cultivate the industry and commerce in Qiongshan first. Qiongshan is not as commercially prosperous as Lingao. Let's raise fish first."