Daming Town Haiwang

Chapter 610, Tax Reform Plan

"Commercial tax and customs duties~"

"Tariffs are the best way to do it. You only need to set up customs departments at open ports, such as Tianjin, Nanjing, Songhu, and Guangzhou, to collect tariffs."

"Well, not only places like Daming, but also in Ryukyu City, Yinshan Port in Japan, Hyogotsu, and Crescent City in Nanyang. These places also have city shipping departments to collect customs duties."

"In the future, there will be as many shipping companies as there are ports, and tariffs will be the big one."

Liu Jin pondered carefully.

Collecting taxes is not an easy task, especially in Daming, where too many people have been offended.

From princes and aristocrats to ordinary merchants and peddlers, they are all the targets of taxation. In the past, the emperor was fooled into being lightly paid and poorly paid. Now, if you let yourself be this villain, you will definitely be scolded by countless people.

After all, no one has been willing to take the initiative to pay and pay taxes since ancient times.

"Business tax is the difficulty and the most important thing."

"The first thing to do is to formulate various types of taxes, such as factory tax, workshop tax, commercial tax, real estate tax, shop tax, special business tax..."

"The most difficult thing is how to collect taxes. It is definitely unrealistic to expect businessmen to pay taxes themselves. A special tax structure must be established to collect taxes."

Soon, Liu Jin became frowning again.

Thinking of the later generations, there are many tax evasion and tax evasion, and the taxation of the later generations is indeed very heavy.

But Daming is different, the business tax is one for thirty, and this tax rate is already extremely low.

But even with such a low tax, the merchants of Ming Dynasty would try their best to evade and evade taxes.

"The collection of commercial tax must be carried out gradually with the big cities as the starting point."

"However, it is not an easy task to collect taxes from merchants, landowners, gentry and big families."

"Try it first. If you can't collect it, you will have to learn from the bald eagles of later generations. Set up a special tax collector."

Soon, Liu Jin roughly had a plan in mind.

Taking out the pen and paper, Liu Jin also began to organize quickly, preparing to write a detailed plan and submit it to Emperor Hongzhi and the cabinet.

A few days later, Tobe.

"Grandpa, this is the tax reform plan drafted by Xiaguan, please read it."

Liu Jin handed over the tax reform plan he drafted to Zhong Zhong.

Well, it’s still the same sentence, give him face, he is the Minister of the Ministry of Household Affairs after all, although Emperor Hongzhi said that he can leapfrog the report, but Liu Jin thinks it is better to discuss it with Qi Zhong first.

"How fast?"

Qi Zhong looked at Liu Jin, this Liu Jin is really vigorous and resolute in his actions.

After getting along with him during this period of time, he felt that Liu Jin was pretty good. He respected him as an old comrade, and he would not be arrogant or arrogant, so his tone was much better.

"I wrote it casually, and I would like to ask Zhong Zhong for your advice."

Liu Jin replied with a smile.

"Hmm~"

He Zhong nodded slightly, picked up the plan and looked at it carefully.

Liu Jin's restructuring plan is very huge, mainly involving two places, one is to set up a city shipping department at each major port to collect customs duties, needless to say.

Originally, the Yamen of the Shibo Department existed before, but it was revoked after the ban on the sea. Now it has been re-established, and there is no problem.

It's just that Liu Jin's setting and conception of the Shibo Department are all set up with reference to the customs of later generations, which is hugely different from the traditional Shibo Department.

Tariffs are not simply levied according to the size of the ship as before, but are levied according to the value of the goods.

This aspect is not a big problem, and Zhong Zhong nodded after reading it.

But soon, when he saw the commercial tax collection, Zhong Zhong couldn't help frowning.

Liu Jin has carried out very detailed planning and settings in terms of taxation. There are more than a dozen types of taxes alone. There are various taxes, and the basis and proportion of each tax collection are completely different.

For example, the factory tax, the factory tax is levied according to the output value of the factory.

There is also workshop tax. The scale of workshops is smaller than that of factories, and a distinction is made between the two. The number of employees is less than 50, which belongs to the workshop, and the number of employees is more than [-], which belongs to the factory.

For small workshops, a fixed amount is collected on a monthly basis.

It can be said that the entire business tax collection plan is very detailed, with detailed distinctions, and different tax rates and collection standards are adopted.

This is completely different from the previous taxation.

In the past, tax collection was done by sitting in the yamen and drinking tea, waiting for the merchants to come and pay the tax on their own initiative. The tax rate was uniform and the collection standard was the same.

For the officials and lords of the yamen, it is naturally very simple and easy. Anyway, more and less taxes will not have any impact on them.

Therefore, the taxes of the Ming Dynasty were generally only collected by a few special types of taxes.

The big one is the salt tax. Because of the opening of the silver, if you want to get the salt, you have to pay a certain amount of silver. Of course, generally speaking, you pay [-] taels of silver, and you can pay a hundred Salt of ten thousand taels of silver was brought out.

Sometimes, even just a token amount of money is needed, and Shiobiki will open it casually.

As for other taxes, they are basically not collected, and even if they are collected, the amount is pitifully small.

Naturally, Liu Jin wants to change this situation, formulate detailed tax types, detailed collection standards and proportions, and levy different taxes for different operations, basically learning from later generations.

Make a distinction so that the role of taxation can be brought into play.

"Liu Jin, if you follow your plan, even ten times more people in our household department will not be enough~"

He Zhong watched very seriously, and also for a long time.

After reading it, he pondered for a while and said.

"Yes, so our household department needs more manpower."

"It's just the city shipping department, Tianjin, Nanjing, Songhu, Guangzhou, Ryukyu, Crescent City, Yinshan Port, Hyogo Tsu, etc. all have city shipping departments and tariffs. The Shibo Department needs at least [-] to [-] people, and this alone requires an increase of more than [-] people."

"In addition, in terms of business and taxation, because we are separated from local taxation and set up a special tax office, so at the beginning, we need to set up tax office in the main cities under the jurisdiction of Ming Dynasty. Calculated, at least thousands of people are needed."

"And it's just officials. In addition, we need a large number of officials, so there will be a large increase in personnel."

Liu Jin nodded and said.

Ming Dynasty is very big, far from what those small western countries can compare with.

It involves the tax reform of the entire Ming Dynasty. I don’t want to be a salted fish like before. The first thing to do is to need a lot of manpower. If there are not enough people, how can it be possible to collect enough taxes?

Do you still expect the same as before, the salted fish drink tea in the yamen and wait for someone to send money.

It's not that easy, at least for now, it's definitely not going to work.

Unless it is able to achieve the level of bald eagles in later generations.

Once tax evasion or tax evasion occurs, there will be extremely serious consequences, so that no one dares to evade taxes, and at that time, it is almost possible to drink tea in the yamen and wait for the money to be collected.

Otherwise, Liu Jin needs a lot of manpower.

This is just the beginning. If the tax cannot be collected, Liu Jin is also going to learn from the bald eagle and create a special tax policeman. If he does not pay the tax, he will be jailed.

At that time, more officials and bureaucrats will be needed.

"No matter how many people are needed at once, the burden on the court will increase a lot."

"At that time, His Majesty and the cabinet will definitely not agree."

"In addition, you have set up an assessment and reward mechanism for tax collection officials and officials. Will this cause these officials and officials below to be mercenary, and to collect taxes indiscriminately in order to get promoted and get rich regardless of the death of the people below?"

Qi Zhong looked at Liu Jin, after all, he was still too young.

The benefit of taxation belongs to the court, the emperor, not you Liu Jin, but you Liu Jin who offend others, why bother to be so hard-working and serious.

What's more, once the emperor and the courtiers, Emperor Hongzhi trusts you, the next emperor may not be the next one, and the system that has been established through hard work may change with a word?

In the final analysis, it's not that the ministers in the court are incompetent, and it's not that everyone doesn't want to change the current situation.

It's just that everyone knows these things very well.

This world belongs to the old Zhu's family, after all, it is the people of the old Zhu's family who have the final say.

There is no need for everyone to offend the old Zhu's family.

Once you provoke public dissatisfaction or something happens, you, Liu Jin, will be pushed out as a scapegoat. Are there few such examples since ancient times?
With Shang Yang's reform, the Qin State became stronger, but Shang Yang fell to a broken end.

Wang Anshi reformed the law, and the treasury of the Song Dynasty was full. In the end, Wang Anshi did not have a good end.

Now you Liu Jin really want to do this, and there will definitely be no good end in the future.

Since ancient times, these emperors have done too much, too much, such as unloading mills and killing donkeys, crossing rivers and demolishing bridges.

Those of us who are courtiers, although the emperor's account is important, we must also consider our own future.

"He Zhong, if there is no assessment and reward mechanism, then how can the officials and officials below have the motivation to collect taxes?"

"At that time, it will be the same as the scene again, so it's better not to change it, and it's good to go in the current way."

"It's just that taxation is one of the foundations for the operation of the court and the country. Without taxation, the court and the country have no way to operate, and there is no way to concentrate their power to do big things."

"When foreign enemies invade, we will be bullied again. If there is a famine, we will not have enough food and money to relieve the disaster."

Liu Jin thought for a while and replied that the tax still needs to be collected, not to mention that this is a task entrusted to him by Emperor Hongzhi. Although Liu Jin knew that he would offend many people, he still had to do it.

　There are many problems. In fact, everyone knows it. It’s just that no one wants to change it. Do you think it’s right?
　　
　
(End of this chapter)