When the Saint comes, she does not collect food

Chapter 593 Constitutional Convention (Part )
"First of all, out of the 17 gold pounds, I can only pay the interest of 27000 gold pounds for Lord Norn's 7000 gold pounds, and extend the payment for about half a year.

This year, due to the continuous wars, as well as the destruction caused by Prince Condé's Lancers and Putsilio, grain production will inevitably decrease, and there will be a certain degree of cash shortage.

Among the nine counties in the Thousand River Valley, perhaps only Langsander County did not delay spring ploughing and was able to receive full taxes.

According to the previous agreement, the taxes of Langsander County belong entirely to the Patriarch, and in order to restore agriculture next year, taxes and rents must be reduced this year.

Therefore, the taxes of the remaining eight counties may have to be cut in half, which is about 6 gold pounds. There is still a gap of 9 gold pounds. His Highness the Patriarch and Lady Catherine are willing to each pay 1 gold pounds to fill the gap.

I don't want your donations and taxes for the remaining 7 gold pounds. I will auction off part of the church property and use the gold pounds stored by the Holy See to make up for it.

But in exchange, you must cooperate with the work of the local sheriff and the priest."

Hearing that they didn't have to pay for it themselves, the representatives on the right seat breathed a sigh of relief, but Clowen felt something was wrong. He immediately stood up and asked, "Could it be that we are cooperating with the county governor to register the land?"

"No, it's a population survey. After the population is determined, it is divided into 100-household districts and tax reforms are carried out in order to obtain sufficient and stable fiscal revenue."

"If we want to have enough tax revenue, the first thing is to expand the tax base, and the second is to reduce waste." Horn held up two fingers. "It takes a long time to expand the tax base. What the Baihu District tax system reform does is to reduce the number of tax chains and shorten their length."

According to the current situation in Qianhe Valley, there are three main chains of taxation.

The first is the kingdom system taxation, in which farmers and tenants paid rent and labor to stewards, village heads or small lords, lower-level landlords paid tribute, exemption taxes, war taxes, and profit sharing taxes to the big lords, and the big lords paid them to the king.

The second is the taxation of the church system, which is nothing more than replacing the stewards with bishops at all levels and selling indulgences at the same time.

The third is the city system taxation. The royal family or the church levies taxes on the city every year, and then the city levies them on various guilds, and the guilds further levy them on craftsmen and citizens.

Because the three tax chains have too many links and are not unified internally, each link is full of corruption and interception, and a large amount of tax revenue is wasted in meaningless internal consumption.

For central taxation, especially for the big lords, it is basically based on poll tax, while for the small lords' own estates, land tax is often the main tax.

For a small lord, he just lives in the manor and never goes anywhere. He knows exactly how many fields he has, so it is very convenient to collect taxes based on the fields.

For the great lords, the number of fields was not transparent. It was impossible for them to go to each manor to measure on site, and defining the output of fields was an unsolvable problem.

It is difficult to measure the fields, but it is easy to count the people.

So they demanded tribute from small lords based on the number of adult males in their territories, while concealing the population and the amount of land in their direct estates from higher-level lords.

Horn was a real farmer. He paid 50 dinars in rent to Barnett and Durdafer, and had to pay an additional 5 dinars as a poll tax.

In theory, this head tax is what the superior lords demand from the subordinate lords, so it changes every year.

But the problem was that Horn couldn't go to his superior lord and ask: How much poll tax did you collect this year?
Although the church had land tax books, the superior lords could not trace the church tax books across the system, and the local bishops and the subordinate lords had the same interests.

Therefore, the lower-level lords and small bishops can accurately harvest the peasants, and then be accurately harvested by foreign merchants.

Because the output of their manors is scattered, if you don't sell it, there are plenty of people who will, and foreign merchants with backgrounds can lower the price to the extreme.

The nobles exchanged the output of these estates for precious metal currency, which they then used to purchase large quantities of luxury goods and maintain the "respectability" of their own status.

Of course, when the money fell into the hands of the great lords, they were used to buy silk, jewelry, and female slaves, and to live a life of luxury and build palaces.

The Kingdom of France became rich by cooperating with merchants and cities and accurately harvesting noble lords.

Compared to the nobles who were all shady, the church was just corrupt and greedy.

Although the church could not audit the accounts of higher authorities, it was still feasible to audit only the next level, so the church could collect taxes from the Thousand Valley that far exceeded those of the royal family.

"So the significance of the population survey and the hundred-household district is that I will take over and sort out the church's tax system, and then replace these three tax chains with the tax system of the Holy Order. Specifically, for example, a manor is organized into a hundred-household district, with a knight or steward serving as the head of the hundred-household district. Before the disaster, it was shown that 30% of the land rent income was gold pounds.

The total amount of rent and taxes should not exceed 25%, so the rent was 5 gold pounds at %. At the same time, the church account books showed that gold pounds was collected as a poll tax from the superior lord last year.

At the same time, knights had to either pass an examination and join the army of the despot or pay an annual exemption tax of 5 gold pounds.

The knight would then have to pay 20 gold pounds to the priestly order, and he could keep 15 gold pounds.

If there are no knights, and the property is returned to the public by the church or armed peasants, then the hundred households will elect their own centurion, but no rent will be collected. Instead, a proportional head tax and exemption tax will be collected on the basis of the tithe.

Assuming a priestly order has 70 centuries, that would be 1400 gold pounds. Twenty percent would be kept for grassroots administrative expenses, and the remaining 1100%, about gold pounds, would be sent to the county governor.

Take County of Carshaven for example, in an ideal situation, you can get £25000 without taking into account the municipal tax.”

The great lords lowered their heads to think, and soon they all smiled, and some even applauded and bowed to Horn.

Because if they use this method, the knights will not be able to conceal the population and land at every level, and they can obtain more income than before!
Moreover, with this method, there is no need to conduct annual inspections or send messengers to monitor everywhere, which eliminates expenses that overlap with church functions and saves a lot of money.

The knight representatives on the right seat, especially the minor nobles of Plain County, felt as if the sky had fallen.

The mountain knights were to join Meliati's army by default, but they were not, which meant their income was cut by nearly half.

"Your Highness, this is not feasible. Our expenses are too high. Although we don't have to go to the battlefield anymore, how can we live on 15 gold pounds?"

"Yes, Your Majesty, I can't afford to live on 15 pounds!"

"Stop talking nonsense." Meliati glared at them, "The Patriarch gave me a survey report the day before yesterday, which showed that only 40% to 50% of your income was spent on family expenses, and only 10% was spent on war horses and equipment. I even exempted it, and the remaining 40% was all abnormal expenses.

A knight with an annual income of 20 pounds would spend 8 pounds a year on spices, fine clothes, high-end furniture, porcelain and miscellaneous trinkets.

"That's a work of art..." A little knight lowered his head and couldn't help but complain.

"You mean I, a wild boar, can't eat bran?" Meliati slammed her iron fist on the table. "I'm telling you, I'm still a wild boar! Use your gold pounds wisely!

In the next three years, the tariffs on these things will all be increased by 10%. I will take the lead in rejecting luxury and waste, and no one who meets me is allowed to wear silk clothes! "

"What about the income of us earls? Your Highness, you didn't tell us where the poll tax went." Amid the wailing, a knight among the representatives on the right shouted.

Meliati glanced over and said, "You have two choices. First, come to Xialu City, and I will give you annuities according to the head tax. Second, stay in the local area and get an industrial and commercial tax exemption equal to the head tax."

"Ah?" The smiling lords were suddenly shocked. "Didn't it go to us?"

"The fewer links the tax money goes through, the better. If it goes through the hands of the county governor and then is distributed to you, it will cause a lot of loss and waste."

"but……"

"But what? You couldn't have collected so much tax in the first place, so why are you not happy with it for free?" Meliati pulled out a list from a piece of paper. "I only want the land on the church's tax account. I don't want your manors and population hidden outside the church's tax system. That's very kind of you."

The nobles, both big and small, swallowed their complaints back into their stomachs, and instead the representatives from the middle seats began to celebrate, hugging and cheering.

However, amid the cheers, noises were heard again among the representatives, and this time it was none other than Herman, the Titled Knight of Meliati.

"Your Excellency the Patriarch's idea is certainly good." Herman's voice was slow and he overwhelmed everyone's discussion or cheers. "But the problem is that there are still many nobles and knights in the local area who don't listen to us. How are you going to implement it?"

(End of this chapter)