Rebirth of Wu Ba Spring and Autumn

Chapter 111
Bo Tong seemed to see Qingji's inner worries, and immediately said: "My lord, I think what Zhisu Neishi said is quite inappropriate!"

"The State of Wu is not the State of Qi after all. Wu's reform cannot completely follow Qi's reform."

"We are just learning from it, not copying it! Qi State was sitting on the benefits of fish and salt long before Guan Zhong's reform, with fertile land and a large population. My Wu State is not."

"Although Wu State is also close to the sea and has the benefits of fish and salt, it is not bordered by Jin, Wei, Lu and other Central Plains countries like Qi State. The interior produces less salt, so it buys more from Qi!"

"As for the countries bordering on our country of Wu, could it be Chuyue, or the vassal states of Chu such as Zhongwu, Xu, Zhongli, etc., either have quarrels with our country of Wu, or they can produce a lot of salt themselves."

"So, how can the State of Wu be the same as the State of Qi? Besides, the State of Wu is vast in land and sparsely populated, and its taxes are not high. No matter how light the tax is, the government may run into a financial deficit and make ends meet!"

Hearing this, including Qingji, Ji Zha, Ji Ran and other ministers couldn't help but nodded their heads in agreement.

On the other hand, Fan Li said: "It is necessary to give the people a living, pay lightly and pay less, and store wealth for the people. It is true that our country of Wu cannot imitate Guan Zhong's reform in its entirety!"

"That's why, Your Majesty, I thought that Wu Guo could divide commercial tax and land rent tax (agricultural tax) on the basis of Guan Zhong's reform and collection of taxes!"

"In terms of business tax, the state of Wu collects tax every two years, and in the first year, [-]% is collected every year."

"In the middle years, ten percent is collected every year."

"In the inferior year, [-]% is collected every year, and it will not change in case of famine!"

"In terms of land rent tax, the king can set the amount of tax collection to be [-] per cent. Regardless of whether the harvest year is good or not, the tax will be [-] per cent. In case of famine, the tax will be exempted!"

Hearing this, Qingji thought to himself for a while, then nodded slightly, and said, "Good!"

Qingji very much agrees with Fan Li's idea of ​​dividing commercial tax and land rent tax.

After all, merchants are different from farmers and other common people (peddlers and pawns).

In a year of famine, the ordinary Li Shu and merchants who suffered from the disaster will not be greatly affected, and even some unscrupulous grain merchants can use this to hoard goods and make a fortune!

Of course, the concept of commercial tax has already appeared, and it was not Fan Li who first proposed it.

Commercial tax, the tax levied on merchants selling goods and other commercial activities!

Commercial tax originated in the Western Zhou Dynasty. At that time, the survivors of the Shang Dynasty after losing power were mostly engaged in trafficking and buying and selling commodities, commonly known as merchants.

The taxes levied by the state are mainly related to city tax and Shanze tax!
The city tax is divided into distribution, total distribution and quality distribution.Punish cloth, cloth cloth.

The Shanze tax is a tax on mineral products, animal skins, teeth, horns, feathers, fish, salt, etc.

The customs city and Shanze taxes (or monopoly) were collected in all subsequent dynasties!

In this era, including the state of Wu, all countries in the world set up shop people in charge of tax collection in the market.

There are five types of taxes: fine cloth, general cloth, quality cloth, fine cloth, and flat cloth.

Among them, the cloth is the land occupation tax levied on the shops in the market.

Zongbu is a land tax levied on commercial firms that occupy land without houses.

Quality cloth is a fine imposed on the use of trade certificates between transactions.

Punishment cloth is a fine levied on merchants who violate the market prohibition.

Banbu is a tax levied on borrowing houses (warehouses) or places to store goods.

These taxes were charged in copper coins.In case of famine and plague, business tax will be exempted!

"Your Majesty, if you don't treat merchants equally with other Li Shu, will it cause dissatisfaction among merchants?"

Dazai Jizha asked worriedly.

"Dazai is worrying too much."

Qing Ji smiled slightly, and said: "Sicai Da Sima proposed the separation of industries among the four people, namely, scholars, farmers, businessmen, and businessmen. Since the classes are divided, the taxes levied on each class must be adjusted according to individual conditions, and they cannot be treated equally!"

"Your Majesty Yingming!"

Bo Tong, Wu Zixu and other ministers could not help but praise.

As a result, Qingji basically finalized the tax collection policy of the Wu State Reform!

Taxes are levied once every two years, and merchants are levied different levels of taxes in accordance with the upper, middle, and lower grades of the year.

Specific circumstances, as appropriate!

The so-called upper, middle, and lower years do not refer to the quality of the country's finances, but the income of each merchant in that year!

This requires special officials to be responsible for supervision and to check the accounts at all times, so as to avoid any omissions and let unscrupulous merchants get away with it.

In terms of land rent and tax, Qingji is very sympathetic to Wu's farmers.

He set the amount of tax collection as "tithe one", that is, 1/15.

It is even superior to the benevolent tax system "Tithe" (1/10) advocated by Mencius later!

In this era, there are basically no countries that can achieve a tithe in land tax collection!
Most of the common land rent taxes in various countries are five taxes one, three taxes one or five taxes two!

The second tax and the first land rent tax have not been collected, which can be regarded as light and thin, because there are still many exorbitant taxes.

The dynasty with the lowest land rent tax rate in history was the Han Dynasty, with a tax of one for thirty!

That is, 1/30 of the total amount of land harvested.

Thirty one tax can be said to be a fairly light tax, which was lower than other dynasties except that it was higher than the forty tax one implemented in the Tang Dynasty.

However, although the land tax in the Han Dynasty was very low, its various poll taxes were much higher than the land tax!
At this time, Ji Zha, the Dazai, had no choice but to say: "Your Majesty, since the land tax has been reduced, whether the oral tax (poll tax) will also be reduced or exempted?"

"No."

Before Qingji could speak, Fan Li, who was at the side, said in a deep voice, "Oral taxation is an important financial revenue of our country of Wu, and it must not be reduced, let alone exempted!"

"Your Majesty, I believe that instead of reducing or exempting the oral tax, the State of Wu has to increase it to make up for the lack of one-fifteen land tax."

"This……"

Ji Zha couldn't help being stunned.

When Qing Ji heard the words, he felt extremely hesitant!

Poll tax, that is, oral tax, is a kind of tax levied by the state on the person.

The West had this tax as early as the Roman Empire!
In this era, there is also a poll tax, whether it is light or heavy.

In the self-sufficient ancient natural economy, there were two main channels for the state to obtain fiscal revenue from farmers: one was the tax levied on the basis of acres, that is, land tax;

The poll tax is efficient, but the most unfair!
The so-called high efficiency means that more taxes can be collected with a small tax cost.

Because any country with good household registration management makes the tax calculation basis of head tax simpler than any other tax, and the tax collection cost can be very low.

The so-called most unfair refers to the fact that the rich with the most income and the poor with almost no income pay the same amount of taxes, which is regressive.

From the theoretical analysis of welfare economics, in the case of poll tax, the welfare loss of the rich is very small, while the poor may lose the most necessary welfare.

Compared with other taxes, poll tax is almost the most unfair!

(End of this chapter)