The Imperial Age with the Resurgence of Han Style

Chapter 189 Finance

In fact, the Qi-British war that has not yet ended is not what the English envoy Baron Spencer Compton imagined, and it seems to have no impact on the entire Qi country.

Are you kidding me? Crossing two oceans and traveling to Europe tens of thousands of kilometers away, mobilizing hundreds of warships and more than 30,000 army and navy officers and soldiers, and fighting a war with the Kingdom of England that lasted for nearly three years. How could Qi have nothing to lose? What about the impact?

The total amount spent on warship losses, casualty pensions, material supplies, and certain financial support for corresponding allies and strategic partners in the past three years has exceeded 34 million yuan. The direct war cost is comparable to that of local operations. There are many more kingdoms in England!

If we add in the economic losses suffered by trading companies and merchants engaged in trade in Arabia, the Mediterranean, Europe and other regions due to the impact of the war, the amount will be even greater.

Not to mention, the Persian Restoration War, the subsequent war with Russia, the troublesome tribal security guerrilla war in Afghanistan, and the indirect intervention in the Burmese civil war are all severely testing Qi's finances.

Oh, by the way, there is also the ongoing Northeast War, and Qi State's finances have to allocate a certain amount of budget to prevent the expansion of the war, which will eventually involve Qi State.

For this reason, in addition to misappropriating large amounts of funds from other expenditure items from its annual budget revenue to support the above-mentioned wars, Qi State also issued a total of more than 32 million special treasury bonds in three years. In this way, we can barely maintain our finances and not be overwhelmed by these wars, which will affect the domestic people's livelihood.

The big bosses in the Ministry of Accounts, who were worried about finances, had several times thought of increasing the scale of money printing and thereby pushing up the domestic inflation level to make up for the fiscal deficit. However, they were dissuaded by His Majesty the Emperor and the Imperial Central Bank. .

You must know that Qi State was based on the gold standard and issued legal compensatory gold scrolls for less than fifty years. It finally accumulated enough credit and extended it to the entire overseas colonial territories and Nanyang vassals, and even There are also a large number of users in Qin, Japan, North Korea, North Korea, India and other countries and regions.

If you are like the Jiaozi of the former Song Dynasty and the treasure banknotes of the pre-Ming Dynasty, you will be like the above two kinds of banknotes, and you will eventually lose your credibility and become a banknote. It's like a waste of paper, and I've ruined myself.

It should be noted that the issuance and stability of banknotes can greatly promote the development of the commodity economy throughout the country and even surrounding areas. It can also create a huge amount of wealth for the country and play a major role in solving the long-term needs of the country.

However, if the government destroys the original financial legal system and abuses credit, the outcome will inevitably lead to inflation and the collapse of the monetary system.

Special income includes a large amount of income from the sale of land, mines, grasslands, woodlands, fisheries, etc.

To reduce expenditure, it is nothing more than to end those meaningless wars as soon as possible to avoid wasting national funds.

However, the Qi government adheres to the free trade policy, encourages industry and commerce, and has gradually canceled a number of franchises. At the same time, it has less interference in corporate and private affairs. Such fees are not much, only a few hundred thousand yuan a year (mainly company registration licenses) fee) is better than nothing.

Even though the pay of those Indian servants is extremely low, and the equipment is not as luxurious as that of the formal army of China, maintaining a combat force of tens of thousands of people must cost hundreds of thousands of yuan every month, and hundreds of thousands of yuan a year. All in all.

There is also the war in the Caucasus. After repelling the Russians, let's just call it a day. If the Russians defeat the Kingdom of Sweden by virtue of their vast and deep territory, they will have to turn around and continue to fight with Qi.

Since we can't distribute gold coins indiscriminately, we can only tap our potential internally, actively increase revenue and reduce expenditure, and stabilize fiscal revenue and expenditure.

The Mughal Empire had fought several wars in the past, but they all thought it was extremely uneconomical and could not recoup the cost of the war.

Government charges are mainly a form of revenue obtained by the government through concession rights or the provision of direct services. Including various fees and usage fees.

Relying on the sale of urban construction land and rural cultivated land, the corresponding land consideration fees are collected.

General fiscal revenue is divided into five categories: taxes, government fees, state-owned asset income, special revenue, and other revenue.

Well, that means collecting more taxes, selling more land, opening more mines, and letting government-controlled trading companies and industrial and mining enterprises turn over more profits and dividends.

Since more than fifty years ago, Qi State began to encroach on Nanyang territory and control massive land resources. Relying on land transactions, its annual income reaches millions to tens of millions of yuan.

In the end, the Persians were not cheap.

Even if the entire Caucasus region is occupied, so what, we won't build a colonial enclave there!

However, after repeated attacks by the Qi Indian Army and the Kerat Khanate Army, his strength has been weakened to the extreme. The maximum number of troops does not exceed 3,000. It is unlikely that this will cause huge waves to threaten Persia and India again.

After more than ninety years of development, Qi's current fiscal revenue model has been basically fixed, and is roughly divided into general fiscal revenue and special fiscal revenue.

That's almost it. Don't add extra consumption in Afghanistan for the sake of the Army's face.

Although Ashraf, the successor leader of the Girzai people, relied on the support of many local tribes and escaped the pursuit of the Qi-Indian army for several consecutive years, he was hiding in the mountains of Afghanistan. He also continued to lead tribal armed forces to fight against our Qi army. deal with.

To reverse financial problems, in addition to cutting expenditures, the more important thing is to increase revenue.

Well, it is what later generations called "land finance".

Tell me, what is the significance of using war in that remote place in Afghanistan?

Not to mention, the mines, forestlands, and coastal fisheries on the Nanyang Islands have also earned the government nearly 10 million yuan in revenue, becoming a contribution that cannot be ignored in the government's revenue.

However, the income from this area is not stable, because it is not every year that a large number of plantation owners and mining investors pour into the above-mentioned fields.

Moreover, if you want to sell land, at least the central government and local government must invest a sum of infrastructure construction funds for early development. Otherwise, the mountains are high and densely forested, full of poisonous insects and beasts, and there are no roads or ports. Only ghosts come to buy land.

Therefore, the cost of land sales is often transferred to the treasury's account, and then turned around and invested in a new round of local construction, and the annual balance is limited.

Well, unless there is a wave of magnificent real estate in later generations, it may be able to bring a lot of financial funds to the government.

When it comes to the income from state-owned assets, it is naturally the large-scale trading companies and industrial and mining enterprises controlled and invested by the government, such as Indian Trading Company, Bangladesh Trading Company, Nanyang Trading Company, Daqi Heavy Industry, Jianye Shipyard, Daxing Shipyard, Daqi Imperial Bank, Han There are dozens of giant companies such as the Asian Industrial and Commercial United Bank, Hanzhou United Insurance Company, and the Imperial Reserve Grain and Oil General Trading Co., Ltd. They turn over tens of millions of yuan in profits and dividends every year, contributing nearly 40% of the government's fiscal revenue.

Of course, not all large-scale industrial and mining enterprises controlled or invested by the government are profitable, such as the Central Railway, Western Railway, Southern Railway, Xiangjiang Coal Mine, Yingzhou Coal Coking Plant, Jianye Steel Plant, Linhai Steel Plant and other heavy industrial enterprises. Due to operational and policy reasons, profits are very thin, and even large losses are incurred, requiring additional financial allocations to maintain them.

Generally speaking, these large enterprises controlled by the government or in which the government holds shares play an important pillar role in the national economy.

As for other income, it includes income from naval privateering during the war, expropriation of enemy property, war reparations, and government confiscation income. For example, during the Qi-British War, the Qi Navy captured a large number of English merchant ships and fishing boats. In addition to some of them being directly sold by the navy to Qi merchants at a discount to supplement daily material needs, most of them were simply passed through third-country merchants. The land changed its appearance and the corresponding gold, silver and materials were obtained through auctions.

When the Qi navy successively invaded the Cape Verde Islands, Madras Islands, Venice, and Malta, they arbitrarily confiscated local government and private property in the name of hostile countries.

In addition, Qi also occupied many Portuguese colonial territories such as Portuguese Diu, Daman, Portuguese Mozambique, Portuguese Angola, and Portuguese Guinea. According to wartime principles, the properties of the local Portuguese colonial government and merchants were also used as spoils of war. The form was collected by Qi State.

A rough estimate shows that during the nearly three years of war, Qi State has seized "trophies" worth more than two to three million yuan. Although it cannot cover the entire cost of the war, it is a considerable supplement to the government's fiscal revenue.

Another type of other income is government forfeiture income.

It mainly includes fines and property confiscation for citizens and military personnel who have been convicted by Dali temples or military courts at all levels; administrative fine income from illegal or illegal trading companies and industrial and mining enterprises; and other forms of fine income.

The last one is the growing variety of taxes, which account for more than 40% of the overall fiscal revenue and have huge potential.

Qi has been developing for so many years. Many taxes that were not levied before and many taxes that were payable without explicit laws and regulations have basically been clarified one by one and listed as collection items. Personnel have been dispatched to various cities and towns in the country to collect them. the entire central finance.

Among the many types of taxes, the most important ones are income tax, business tax and consumption tax.

Income tax is levied on major domestic state-owned and private enterprises as well as self-employed individuals. It is levied once a year and implements a fixed-proportion tax system, that is, the total income is multiplied by a determined tax rate.

The current corporate income tax rate in Qi is 15%. In March every year, tax inspectors conduct business assessments on trading companies or industrial and mining enterprises. After determining the taxes, they are sent to the General Administration of Taxation to bank accounts in various places.

However, a major problem with this system is that no matter what operating status a trading company or industrial and mining enterprise is in, it must pay a certain proportion of taxes. For enterprises that suffer losses in certain years, the burden cannot be relieved.

But in the 18th century, before electronicization and tax systematization, how could the tax officials of Qi, who conducted purely manual inspections, distinguish which trading companies were profitable and which ones were suffering huge losses.

Since your trading company is in operation and has various revenue streams, it is probably profitable.

Well, it's a bit simple and crude.

However, precisely because of this, the income tax collection process for trading companies is extremely difficult, and it is also the hardest hit area for tax evasion and tax avoidance, leaving tax auditors across the country struggling to deal with it.

Among income taxes, there is also income tax levied on personal income, which levies taxes on different national incomes at differential rates. This tax began to be levied nationwide as early as the fourth year of the Han Dynasty (1674), becoming the first country in the world to levy personal tax (the UK began to collect personal tax in 1799).

In fact, if we are to be honest, Emperor Wu of the Han Dynasty was actually the originator of the implementation of personal income tax. In 119 BC, in order to increase fiscal revenue, Emperor Wu began to implement the "calculation" policy. The "miscounting" policy is the earliest model of tax policy in Chinese history and the earliest source of China's implementation of property disclosure.

Business tax is nothing new in the world's financial development process.

As early as the Song and Ming dynasties, taxes on door stalls, class irons, and shop room taxes were all business taxes.

In the European Middle Ages, the government levied a certain amount of money on merchants every year to allow them to operate, called a license fee, which was also a business tax.

Qi's business tax is also levied on major state-owned, private enterprises and self-employed individuals in the country. It is levied every six months with a tax rate of 10% and is levied based on the size of the tax's turnover.

Consumption tax is currently a specific tax, which is levied on luxury goods such as alcohol, tobacco, high-end furs, high-end furniture, jewelry, silk, tea, porcelain, ivory products, clocks and watches, and the tax rate is uniformly set at 15%. The seller shall proactively declare and pay the tax to the taxing authority, and the taxing authority may send personnel to verify at any time.

In addition to the above three more important taxes, there are also property taxes and customs duties in fiscal revenue.

In the Zhou Dynasty, "廛bu" was used, "廛" refers to the residences in the city, and "bu" refers to the tax on public residences, which was the early house tax. In the fourth year of Jianzhong (783) of Emperor Dezong of the Tang Dynasty, the "tax intermediary frame" was established, which taxed houses and was also a kind of property tax. Because it was too severe and disturbed the people, it was soon forced to be abolished. In later generations, housing donations were levied in the late Qing Dynasty, and the Kuomintang government continued to collect them until the Republic of China.

The deed tax levied with the transfer of property such as houses, horses and cattle originated from the tax assessment in the Eastern Jin Dynasty. In the second year of Kaibao in the former Song Dynasty (969), it was stipulated that when people buy land and houses, they should submit money to the government within two months and request a seal, which is called deed money. Deed taxes were also levied during the Yuan and Ming dynasties.

In the State of Qi, as the people became increasingly wealthy, property tax began to be levied as early as the second year of the Han Dynasty (1672), that is, an inventory of each citizen's property, including land, houses, factories, mines and other real estate , as well as livestock, grain, production materials and other movable properties. Then the amount of property of each household is registered and taxed at a rate of 1% (the early tax rate was 0.5%).

Among them, property valuations below 150 yuan are exempt from tax. These taxes can be collected in cash or in kind, but the proportion in kind cannot exceed half. When natural disasters, war damage and other irresistible events occur in the country, the government may reduce or reduce certain taxes as appropriate.

Among them, the inventory statistics of real estate are determined every five years; the taxpayers themselves estimate and declare the movable assets every year, and the taxation authorities have the right to conduct inspections and impose fines for tax evasion.

Tariffs are taxes levied on goods imported into the country from abroad. Depending on the importance of a certain commodity to the country, its tax rate is also different. For example, the materials needed by Qi such as saltpeter, bristle, tung oil, indigo, copper, tea, asphalt, graphite, cotton, etc. are completely exempt from tariffs; while general consumer goods such as sugar, cocoa, rigging, furs, and dried fruits are taxed. Low taxes ranging from 3% to 10%; for textiles, leather products, hardware and other foreign goods that compete with Qi, as well as some luxury goods, high-end porcelain, jade, pearls, etc., a tax of 50% to 200% is levied Punitive tariffs.

Deed tax, business tax, consumption tax, customs duty, movable property tax, real estate tax, personal income tax, land tax, stamp tax, tobacco and alcohol tax, luxury goods tax, all of the above, add up to almost eleven major types of taxes, accounting for most of Qi's fiscal revenue , collecting more than 60 million yuan every year, which seems to be a lot of money. If you add in government fees, state-owned asset income, special revenue and other income, the annual income is a huge 160 million yuan, which is proud of the world.

But don't forget that the Qi government claims to be a big government, and its rule base extends directly to villages and towns, so the scope of its management is far beyond that of previous dynasties.

From resettlement, to field reclamation, from water conservancy construction, to urban infrastructure renovation and maintenance, from road traffic coverage across the country and even overseas territories, to the construction of ports, terminals and stations, as well as huge homeland security and maintenance of important routes and strongholds , various expenses are naturally very huge.

If there are special circumstances, such as the outbreak and expansion of war, the occurrence of major natural disasters, and unexpected trade disputes, they will seriously affect the balance of government fiscal revenue and expenditure, forcing the government to issue additional government bonds to rely on borrowing money. money to tide over temporary financial crises.

No, Qi State has been arrogantly fighting three wars at the same time in recent years. Although it has the absolute upper hand with its physical strength, it has also greatly dragged down the national finances.

After the prince took charge of the country, he heard that the government's fiscal deficit would hit a new high. Immediately, while preparing to end several wars, he also ordered the cabinet to launch a nationwide tax audit.

In other words, our country's economy has been growing year after year, and the country is also prosperous. It makes no sense that fiscal revenue growth is so weak, and the government still needs to borrow money to live!

So, what's the problem? ——

(End of this chapter)