Qiming 1158

Chapter 642 Chen Ying and the New Tax Law
Knowing the result of Liao Yuan's disposal, Chen Ying, the magistrate of Qushan County, looked very bad.

Liao Yuan asked him to give an explanation, a commitment and a time limit to do it.

Facing Liao Yuan's question, Chen Ying hesitated for a while, and finally explained helplessly.

It is not that the county government does not know that this matter is illegal, nor that it does not know that tax refunds should be done. However, the number of personnel responsible for taxation work in the county government is limited, and there is no precedent for this matter. The provisional agricultural tax law on this matter is relatively general.

More importantly, Su Yonglin's tax laws in Haizhou are different from other places.

Before the new "Ming Law" was officially promulgated in the world, other places still used the common tax laws in the Jin and Song Dynasties for the time being. Su Yonglin only abolished a lot of exorbitant taxes and miscellaneous taxes, reducing the burden on farmers, but the tax collection method did not change.

Only in Haizhou, Su Yonglin announced at the beginning of this year that he would implement a new tax law, replacing the tax law used by Jin and Song Dynasties with a brand new tax law.

That is, the tax is calculated per mu.

The agricultural tax is levied according to the amount of land and acres, and the real objects that need to be collected are converted into money.

In short, Su Yonglin believes that the tax collection methods of the past dynasties and dynasties are too complicated and have many names, which are inconvenient for the public and convenient for the government.

To give the simplest example, in the past, all taxes were collected in kind, and some objects that were easy to store were fine, but cloth and the like were easily damaged, and larger quantities of grain were also prone to damp, moldy and corruption.

Once stored improperly, it is easy to have a lot of wear and tear.

Take grain as an example. In the past, the government collected grain after collecting taxes. The grain was collected from farmers and then transported and stored. During this process, due to unscientific and rough operations, the loss of food was a huge sum of money.

In the past, the government was reluctant to bear this loss and found that the loss was too large, so they spread the loss to the farmers, and required farmers to pay an additional cost of loss when paying normal taxes.

This is an open and above-mentioned burden on farmers, requiring farmers to bear the unscientific and unreasonable transportation methods of the government in the past.

What's more, this additional waste money is often not the rated amount, which gives local officials and petty officials a lot of room for manipulation. The purpose of filling one's own pockets.

Farmers have suffered severe exploitation for this, and farmers who are unwilling to accept this rule often end up miserably.

Su Yonglin has been doing business in the private sector for a long time, and he knows a lot about this system and hates it, so he decides to reform the taxation method.

He decided to make some changes when the Ming Dynasty was just founded. From then on, all the agricultural taxes were distributed to the fields, and the taxes were calculated based on the fields, and all agricultural taxes were settled in copper coins.

No matter what the farmer planted or harvested, the farmer only needed to pay a sum of copper coins to the tax collector, then everything would be fine, and he could rest easy.

They don't have to worry about tax collectors coming to harass them, and they don't have to pay extra wear and tear.

As for how farmers get copper coins...

Su Yonglin intends to complement such a taxation system with a strategy of purchasing grain and other crops from farmers in the name of the state and storing them as reserves.

That is, before the tax is levied every year, people who buy grain and other crops are arranged to go to the countryside to buy grain and other crops from farmers. Farmers can sort out crops other than rations and seed grains and sell these crops at the official purchase price. to the official.

The purchase price will not be low and will not harm the interests of farmers, so that farmers can get money from the official hands.

After the official obtains these physical objects, they can be transported to designated warehouses for storage in accordance with the prescribed system, as special crops for national reserves, distributed by the imperial court, and decided to use in all aspects.

And the transportation loss cost is borne by the Daming government, not farmers.

The peasants got the money, and when the tax collectors came, they could pay the taxes directly with the money.

Officials can reduce losses caused by scattered transportation and lack of unified regulations, greatly saving a sum of transportation and storage losses, and farmers can also save money for losses, which is a real reduction in the burden.

This is the basic spirit of the new tax law.

Su Yonglin negotiated with officials of the Ministry of Finance for a long time at the central government and formulated such a strategy, which was first implemented in Haizhou.

However, this tax law looks simple, and in practice, there are many things that need to be adapted to local conditions, and it also requires a lot of official labor to solve.

Therefore, after the implementation, it was determined that this tax law actually reduced the burden on farmers, but increased the burden on the government.

Because Haizhou was the place where it was implemented for the first time, Su Yonglin needed to see the results as soon as possible, so the local governments worked overtime to catch up, and finally completed the supporting measures for the new tax law reform before the tax season, so that the new tax law could be implemented.

Not to mention, the new tax law has really saved a lot of things. Farmers who have suffered from paying taxes in the past praised it, and felt that the court was really humane.

But the officials in charge of the matter don't see it that way.

They worked overtime in [-] to make it easier for the peasants, but they themselves were not at all easy, and there was still a lot of work to be done in the process from the collection of taxes from the peasants to the complete tax payment, and the tax officials were under a lot of pressure.

Against such a background, it is inevitable to make some mistakes in the taxation process, and there are not many people involved in this matter, only a few villages in a township.

There are only a few villages, but the tax officials need to work overtime to find the tax records of those villages to determine the tax refund amount, which increases a lot of work burden, and the tax officials feel resentment in their hearts.

So much so that after the county government handed over the task, it was unable to find any free tax collectors who could handle the matter, so the matter was delayed again and again, and finally it was brought to an end.

After the ins and outs of the matter were made clear, the Judicial Branch upheld the original verdict for Liao Yuan, believing that it was caused by the work error of the county government.

The county magistrate, Chen Ying, vomited bitterly.

"The new tax law has just been implemented, and the imperial court urgently needs to see the results. There is too little time left for us. It is difficult to complete the arrangement before the tax season, but it is not just as simple as collecting money. The food also needs the county government to organize human and material resources to transport it to the designated warehouse.

There are so many things that need to be dealt with, so this tax season, there are not many people in the county government who can handle affairs safely, and almost everyone is seconded to assist in tax handling, so it is still too rushed. , Suddenly such a thing happened, it was just a few villages in a township, I really had no choice. "

With that said, Chen Ying took off her official hat, grabbed a handful of heads with her hands, and pulled out dozens of hairs from her hands.

"I'm busy day and night, I can't sleep well, and I can't eat well. I'm afraid that it will hinder the trial of the new tax law. It's hard to complete the task, but I still have to face such a difficult situation. Are national affairs less important than the trivial affairs of a township and a few villages? "

Liao Yuan did not answer Chen Ying's question, but turned his attention to Wang Kangshi and Bu Liang, director of the Qushan County Revival Association branch, who had been listening.

Wang Kangshi and Bu Liang sat in on the entire meeting. The meeting is now over. Everyone's eyes are on them, obviously hoping they can say something.

As the head of the revival society, they have enough influence to make judgments that affect the final decision.

Wang Kangshi looked at Bu Liang.

"Director Bu, what do you think?"

"I think... it's better for Director Wang to speak first."

"Okay, let me tell you my opinion."

Wang Kangshi nodded and said slowly: "I think the first thing to be clear about this matter is that it is indeed the work error of the county government that caused this to happen, so the county government is indeed guilty of this matter. Wrong, violated the law and needs to be punished."

When Wang Kangshi said these words, it was equivalent to confirming the matter.

Chen Ying felt wronged and was about to plead again, but Wang Kangshi raised his hand to stop Chen Ying's plea.

"Originally, I thought this way, as long as a little disciplinary warning is enough, but now I think it's not enough."

Wang Kangshi looked at Chen Ying with a stunned expression, and said solemnly: "Chen County magistrate, you made a big mistake, a mistake even bigger than the tax mistake, do you realize it?"

(End of this chapter)