1988: Back to the human world for a few years

Chapter 124 Harsh Conditions (2)

As we all know, capital is inherently sinful.

To be fair, after the reform and opening up, although the first batch of private enterprises in China were far less rampant than their successors from the 90s to the mid-millennium in some aspects, they also did a lot of things that were criticized.

The less courageous ones, in the name of cooperation, use extremely low costs to obtain the technology of state-owned enterprises, and then turn around to steal the customers of state-owned enterprises;
The more normal ones took advantage of the low cultural level of the Chinese people at that time, and randomly assembled a product from the corners, put up a façade and boasted about it, and then fooled everyone into paying for it;
Those who are a little bolder take unconventional approaches and use various means to obtain approval documents, foreign exchange, and indicators;

Those who are more daring will show off some tricks they figured out from nowhere, then paint a rosy picture for the competent authorities, and finally take the special funds blatantly.

The various magical powers displayed during this period are enough to make people jaw-dropping.

Although from a very rational and indifferent perspective, if the law does not prohibit it, you can do it. Many of the operations in between cannot be said to be wrong. Some of the miraculous things are also a matter of willingness.
But there is one thing that cannot be washed away no matter how hard you try.

In this era, the vast majority of private enterprises and self-employed individuals have serious tax evasion issues...the proportion is as high as 80%!

And this is just the statistical data disclosed by the industrial and commercial system. Anyone with a discerning eye can see that this number is definitely not as optimistic as 80%.

Perhaps some of these self-employed individuals are not aware of the existence of such a thing as "paying taxes";

Perhaps some private enterprise bosses, because they do not have the most basic financial and tax knowledge, allow their subordinates to do random accounting, resulting in objective omissions, under-reporting, or even non-reporting;

But more often than not, these bosses want to save money in this way just to put more money in their pockets.

The country was of course greatly disappointed when it saw that after opening up its policies, the private enterprises that had been highly anticipated in the early stages did not revitalize the domestic economy in a healthy and effective manner, nor did they come up with any eye-catching model innovations. Instead, they were like leeches sucking blood and digging up roots from state-owned enterprises and the country itself. Then, starting with tax audits, the country began a massive rectification campaign targeting the private economy (excluding self-employed businesses that abide by the rules).

(Without any subjective color, just like later generations, most private enterprises in the 1980s were swarming together, doing whatever could make quick money, whatever could make big money, and almost all of them were eating from the existing big pot of state-owned enterprises. Few of them took a different approach. Not only did they not help much in adjusting the industrial structure of the entire society, but they also spawned a large number of counterfeit and shoddy products. In the absence of a sound regulatory system, some of the unscrupulous behaviors had a bad and far-reaching impact, and their destructiveness to the domestic social ecology should not be underestimated.)
Obviously, among those who have rushed over to join the Momo Baizha project at this critical juncture of the economy, there are people who come here for normal business cooperation, but more of them are those who intend to seek protection.

Since they have come here to seek protection, their tax situation will certainly not be clean.

Therefore, clarifying the scope of tax evasion by these guys has become a very important and must-be-clarified matter… It’s not that if the amount of tax evasion is large, Qingfeng Food will not accept it at all in order to avoid too much consequence, but as the project leader, Yang Mo has other considerations on this matter.

………………

Looking at Lu Yingying's attitude of "If you don't tell the truth, there's no room for negotiation", Xu Zhiyuan stood there in silence for a long time with an ugly expression.

Seeing this, Lu Yingying followed Yang Mo's instructions and did not urge him. She just looked at the clock on the wall... The implication was obvious, if he didn't give an answer within the specified time, then it was up to him.

A minute later, Lu Yingying looked up at the clock again. Just as she was about to tell the guy in the gray suit to get out, Xu Zhiyuan finally spoke: "470 million."

Lu Yingying was stunned: "How much?" Xu Zhiyuan sighed with a struggling expression: "Manager Lu, I mean, the two companies under my name have owed about 470 million in taxes in the past three years."

To be honest, he would never say such a thing if he had no choice.

But the problem is that the situation is very tense now. As the most scarce resource in China, any company involved in rebar cannot escape investigation.
Moreover, as a seasoned veteran, he keenly realized that the reason why the other party was determined to find out the amount of tax evasion committed by these franchisees might not be to cooperate with the competent authorities in rectifying the private economy, but to assess whether they had the ability to protect themselves.

Hearing the figure of 470 million, Lu Yingying's face changed slightly. She never expected that this guy's hole was so big. She also understood instantly why this guy came to her door... 470 million is really not a small amount. Even if rebar is in short supply, the profit is much higher than that of ordinary steel. But with this guy's low status in this industry, he definitely can't come up with so much money to fill the hole.

Quietly opening the notebook and looking at the limit values ​​listed by Yang Mo, Lu Yingying breathed a sigh of relief... Fortunately, it was still a little short of the upper limit of 500 million, otherwise she would have to give up this piece of fat meat with tears.

Thinking of this, Lu Yingying's face became more serious: "Mr. Xu, please confirm again, is it really only 470 million? Let me be frank, if you lie about the number, the consequences will be very serious!"

As a rural girl who was influenced by the times, Tugou had no good feelings towards these guys who only knew how to speculate all day long, so her tone was quite impolite.

Hearing Lu Yingying's stern question, Xu Zhiyuan did not get angry, but was slightly happy;
It seems that my guess was right. The other party was just evaluating whether he had the ability to protect me. Judging from the current situation... there should be a chance.

He replied respectfully, "Manager Lu, the difference is indeed about 470 million, and the fluctuation will not exceed 10... Your drilling company is a central enterprise. After verification by the local industrial and commercial taxation system, it is not difficult to apply to them for the retrieval of files. You should also understand my current situation. How dare I risk offending both sides and deceive you?"

Lu Yingying stared at him carefully for a while, and found that he didn't seem to be lying, so she breathed a sigh of relief and wrote down on the document: "Next is the fourth question. If the conditions are met, the preliminary review will be passed, and we can formally discuss the conditions for cooperation and franchising."

Xu Zhiyuan was stunned. Are there other conditions that need to be met?
That’s a lot of screening conditions!

However, the more the other party did this, the more he looked forward to it... Anyone with a little social experience knows that the more conditions the other party puts forward and the more demanding they are, the more serious the other party is about the matter and the higher the possibility that they intend to protect him. If Lu Yingying just asked a few questions and started talking about cooperation, he would be nervous.

He took a deep breath and lowered his posture further: "Manager Lu, may I ask?"

Lu Yingying looked at him and asked a seemingly irrelevant question: "Mr. Xu, the information says that your two companies are located in Zhanjiang and Tianjin respectively. Let's not discuss the Zhanjiang one for now, after all, Momo Baizha has no plans to open a store there;"

"So, the fourth question is, what are your social relationships in Tianjin? The social relationships here do not only refer to the regional authorities, but also include all the social resources you have control over... So, you should understand what I mean, right?"

Xu Zhiyuan understood immediately and laughed: "Manager Lu, you are worrying too much. In our line of work, if you want to talk about upward resources, then we definitely cannot compare with your company, but if we talk about mass relations, then of course it goes without saying... In fact, in addition to mass resources, I have some ordinary business resources here, even if I'm not afraid of making you laugh."

In this wild era, if you don't have a "mass base", you can hardly move forward. This problem may be a little difficult for other small bosses; but for people like him who are engaged in the transfer and distribution of scarce materials, it is just a drizzle... What a joke! If you don't have some skills, the rebar you get will be robbed by others in minutes, and you are still doing a stupid business!

In fact, the reason why Yang Mo listed this question as a threshold condition is also based on this consideration... Taking 2001 as the dividing line, the underlying business logic before and after is completely different. If you choose a partner in this era based on the standards of the future, you probably won’t even know how you died in the end.

(End of this chapter)