I am not a deposed emperor of Han Dynasty

Chapter 523 Tax Reform: Gentlemen, come and see how I make money

After the Han army departed from Chang'an City, Liu He began to implement the third round of New Deal with lightning speed.

The focus of this round of New Deal is tax reform.

The taxes of the Han Dynasty can be divided into three main parts, namely land tax [land rent, etc.], head tax [calculated tax, oral tax, etc.], and miscellaneous taxes [customs duties, municipal taxes, etc.].

Among them, property taxes and commercial taxes, which have various names, occupy a major position among miscellaneous taxes.

Of the above three types of taxes, land tax is paid directly to Da Sinong; half of the head tax is paid to the Shaofu and half to Da Sinong; miscellaneous taxes are paid to the Shaofu.

Da Sinong is the treasury of the Han Dynasty, and Shaofu is the private treasury of the emperor. The two must not be confused.

In addition to the above three major taxes, Captain Shuiheng minted new five baht coins every year, which was equivalent to a seigniorage tax and belonged to the emperor.

All the above constitute the money bags of the great man and the emperor.

Of course, taxation is not only about money bags, but also about many things in the world.

Humans are profit-seeking animals, and the superiors can regulate human behavior by adjusting the tax system, thereby regulating the national policy of the Han Dynasty.

Therefore, as long as Liu He completes the tax system reform of the Han Dynasty, he will also indirectly complete many political and economic reforms.

For a long time, from the pre-Qin Dynasty to the Han Dynasty, one of the biggest basic national policies was "emphasis on agriculture and suppression of commerce."

Although Emperor Xiaowu once vigorously supported business during his reign, for the rest of the time, although merchants occupied a large amount of wealth, their status was extremely low.

The reason why rulers in the past dynasties focused on agriculture and suppressed commerce was because they were worried that commerce would impact agriculture, resulting in a situation where everyone was pursuing profit and no one was farming.

But facts have proven that the rise of commerce does not necessarily affect agriculture, and attaching importance to agriculture does not necessarily suppress commerce.

Emperor Xiaowu obtained a large amount of wealth for years of foreign wars by supporting business, and agriculture was not damaged.

Nowadays, Liu He has implemented a large number of new agricultural tools and new farming methods. The productivity of Han's agriculture has been developed, and it is even less likely to be easily impacted.

Therefore, the current Han Dynasty has the conditions to change the "emphasis on agriculture and suppressing commerce" to "focusing on agriculture and commerce as a supplement."

It turns out that there are two means to maintain the "emphasis on agriculture and suppression of business", one is the state's violent means, and the other is the means of taxation.

Take the current Han Dynasty as an example. A large part of the miscellaneous taxes exist to "suppress business."

A "stall fee" and a "transaction tax" - a municipal tax - levied at the market.

"Tolls" - tariffs - are collected from time to time when goods pass through the pass.

The "interest tax" levied on the interest on loaned money and food - loan tax.

A "property tax" levied on all people's property - abrogation tax.

……

The above miscellaneous taxes are only taxes levied on commercial activities themselves.

Although wealthy families like Zhang Anshi are not city residents, they must pay the above-mentioned taxes as long as they conduct transactions.

In addition, those real businessmen who are registered in the city have to pay an additional "property tax" - money calculation and car payment.

[In the previous article, the property tax for all households was mistakenly written as "minqian", which should be the "excess tax". The property tax paid by businessmen with municipal registration is "minqian" and "car money".

Therefore, businessmen who have made a lot of money will either try their best to break away from the city registration, or they will not have the city registration in the first place.

In this way, businessmen will eventually become landlords. How can it be possible for business to truly develop?

In the end, these commercial taxes suppress small and medium-sized businessmen: they are the main force in promoting the prosperous development of commercial activities.

Whether it is to activate business or to crack down on wealthy families, Liu He must use tax collection methods well.

Liu He's first move to reform the tax system was to implement progressive tax rates in land tax and property tax.

For example, for land rent, the most important tax, there will be many benefits after implementing a progressive tax rate system.

According to the established system, regardless of whether the land is large or small, the land rent is generally thirty to one tax.

However, after the reform, families with less land can be exempted from land rent or pay less land rent; families with more land must pay more land rent, let alone pass it on to tenants.

The land rent for less than one hectare is free, the rent for one to five hectares is 60 tax per hectare, the rent for five to ten hectares is 30 tax per hectare, and the rent for ten to thirty hectares is 15 tax per hectare...

Rent from 30 to 100 hectares is based on ten taxes per hectare, and rent over 100 hectares is based on five taxes per hectare. [One hectare = one hundred Chinese acres ≈ thirty-three urban acres]

According to this tax rate, a typical five-hectare house can receive one thousand shi of grain a year. Originally, it had to pay 33 shi of grain a year, but after the restructuring, it only had to pay 16 shi of grain.

However, a family with a hundred hectares can get 20,000 shi of grain a year. Originally, it had to pay 666 shi of grain a year. After the restructuring, it had to pay more than 4,000 shi of grain.

The more land, the higher the tax rate: while expanding tax sources, it can also inhibit land mergers, which is a good thing that kills two birds with one stone.

In addition, the new military merit title system only gave land and could not exempt people from labor and taxes. Liu He followed suit and abolished the tax exemption and exemption privileges in the old military merit title system.

It is equivalent to completing the process of officials and gentry receiving food from one body in disguise.

In today's Han Dynasty, the military merit group has collapsed and the scholar-bureaucrats and civil servants group has not yet been formed. This is the best time to implement the integration of officials and gentry into paying grain.

Liu He's second measure to reform the tax system is to refine various commercial taxes.

Originally, no matter what goods were traded, the proportion of transaction tax was relatively fixed.

Expensive silk is taxed at 50% tax per yen, and ordinary corn is also taxed at 50% tax per yen, which is obviously unreasonable.

After Liu He's reforms, the tax rates for commodities with different prices have become different.

Items that the common people cannot live without, such as corn and linen, do not need to pay taxes, which can stabilize prices and reduce the burden on the common people.

Low tax rates apply to livestock, poultry, fruits and vegetables, iron farm tools and daily utensils.

Ordinary fields, houses, ordinary silks, brocades, silks, etc. are subject to medium tax rates.

High-value commodities such as large tracts of land, luxurious estates, fine silks, handsome horses and luxury cars, and gold and silver jewelry are subject to high tax rates—a full 30% or more.

The last type of things are luxuries that only wealthy families can afford. The tax imposed on them is actually the luxury tax of later generations - commonly known as the rich tax.

Imposing heavy taxes on these goods will eventually be reflected in the prices. This will not only help the Han people to form a social atmosphere of frugality, but also allow the main force consuming these goods to spend more money.

In this way, not only can the young government collect more taxes, but it can also suppress wealthy families. It is a good way to kill two birds with one stone.

The third measure of tax reform is to reduce the population tax, or to be more precise, it should be to adjust the population tax.

Population taxes have existed since ancient times, and they are very heavy because they are easy to collect and the tax cost is low.

After all, land can be hidden, but population cannot be hidden.

But the disadvantage is also obvious, that is, the tax burden is unfair. The population tax of the Han Dynasty can be mainly divided into calculation tax and oral tax.

Those who are over fifteen years old are required to pay a tax of 120 yuan per year.

Children between the ages of three and fourteen are required to pay 23 qian per year.

It seems that the pay-per-mouth calculation is very reasonable, but in fact there is a big trick.

A family with five adults in their prime can cultivate about 100 acres of land and get 200 dan of grain, which is equivalent to 20,000 yuan in cash.

According to the old tax rate of thirty to one, the land rent would have to be about 700 yuan; the tax would have to be 600 yuan.

In comparison, the burdens of land tax and population tax are about the same.

However, there is another problem, that is, the land rent can be paid directly to the grain, but the tax needs to be paid directly.

Therefore, if the people wanted to pay the tax, they had to sell their own grain in the market first, and then exchange it for money before paying the tax.

When the harvest was good, food prices fell, and the tax burden increased in disguise; when the harvest was bad, people had no money to pay the tax, so they had no choice but to borrow loan sharks, and were eventually crushed by the high interest rates.

Not to mention that when selling rice, you may encounter cunning and plundering, which is another huge loss.

Wealthy families often occupy hundreds of hectares of land, but their families do not have too many people. A few hundred dollars a year is very light for them, so they fear land rent rather than tax.

The situation is different for people from poor families with little land. The expenditure on calculating taxes is the same as the expenditure on land rent, but the burden is actually heavier.

Rulers in the past dynasties would reduce or reduce land rent from time to time, but oral taxes were never willing to be reduced.

The reason is that it wants to protect the interests of feudal landlords: the slogan of light corvee and low tax is loud, but the benefits and benefits do not reach the heads of ordinary people.

On the other hand, heavy oral taxes also suppressed people's desire to have children and slowed down population growth.

Just like in China thousands of years later, if every child had to pay an additional head tax, people who are not willing to have children would be even less willing to bear this yoke.

Now, Liu He wants to manage the Western Regions, develop the South, and colonize the New World, and he needs people everywhere.

Whether it is to reduce the burden on the people or to increase the population, the calculation of taxes and money must be properly changed.

Because the relationship between calculation of taxes and oral money is so great, it is impossible to reduce them all at once.

Therefore, Liu He stipulated in the edict that the tax collection and oral money would continue to be collected, but the collection unit was changed from the household to the household.

Regardless of the number of people in a household, the annual poll tax only collected one hundred and twenty yuan.

In this way, people will have one less thing to worry about when giving birth to offspring.

In fact, this is the "spreading a small amount into an acre" of semi-finished products.

Even if the wealth and oral income were reduced, the Shaofu and Da Si Nong also had less money. This was a "bad consequence" that Liu He never wanted to see.

So his attention naturally turned to the wealthy families, and he wanted to get the money back from them.

So in addition to the property tax, a slave tax was levied on them: for each slave they owned, they had to pay 3,600 yuan a year.

A slave tax can cover the tax and oral income of thirty good families, and the Han Dynasty has at least one million slaves, which can just make up for the shortfall in tax and oral income.

Such a business is very cost-effective.

However, for the wealthy, it is not too heavy. They can afford the money, so they will not object.

Even if you object, it is useless. The tens of thousands of new troops trained are not vegetarians.

Raising taxes on aristocratic families is like a chokehold. It makes them uncomfortable but does not choke them to death.

In addition to the above three major measures, Liu He also carried out reforms on some other miscellaneous taxes.

There are two general principles: one is "agriculture is the mainstay and business is the supplement"; the other is "attacking wealthy families and supporting poor families".

In addition, Liu He also added a new government office in the court hall - the Taxation Temple, whose chief was the chief tax chief with a rank of two thousand shi.

With the establishment of a tax temple in Chang'an City, new tax offices were built at the prefecture and county level - tax guards at the county and road level and tax offices at the prefecture and state level.

These tax guards and tax offices must be under the jurisdiction of the local county magistrate's office and the Chang'an Tax Temple at the same time, which can avoid graft and corruption to a certain extent.

The taxes received are no longer directly kept by the local government or Da Sinong, but are directly under the jurisdiction of Shuiheng Bank and Shuiheng Duwei in various places.

Before the completion of the restructuring, everything from taxation to storage to dispatch and use was under the sole control of the local government offices and Da Sinong (Shaofu), lacking checks and balances.

But now it's different.

The tax collector is responsible for collecting taxes, and the custody is under the jurisdiction of Shuiheng Bank and Shuiheng Duwei Mansion Office. The specific use is handled by the local government office and Da Sinong.

Each of the three parties has an account, and when they check and compare at the end of the year, it will be clear at a glance what went wrong.

Compared with later generations, this simple financial and taxation system is still very primitive and even has many loopholes.

But this is a good start, at least much better than the current system.

Liu He still adhered to his principles. He only gave an initial impetus, and then relied on the wisdom of the people in the world to continuously improve these systems.

Tax reform is the highlight of Liu He's third round of reform and new policies. It requires a huge amount of material and manpower, and it cannot be completed overnight.

From September to November, Liu He and the entire cabinet were almost busy with this matter.

However, even if no one stopped the trouble, it still took a lot of experience.

And these two months are precisely the busiest time in Chang'an City.

Not only must the county's achievements be assessed as in previous years, but this year's taxes must also be collected according to the old law. The first national examination of the imperial examination system is also being held in full swing.

In addition to these things, the court also had to continuously provide military supplies and food to the Han army on the expedition. Therefore, the entire city of Chang'an and even the entire Han Dynasty entered a state of busyness and chaos.

This kind of busyness and chaos was unprecedented in the Han Dynasty. The officials at the top and bottom were too busy to go home for a rest, and some even fell ill directly in the government office.

But it also shows a thriving scene.

Standing at the highest point, Liu He could see everything clearly and felt extremely gratified and comfortable. This was what reform and innovation looked like in his mind.

With this sense of accomplishment, all the previous struggles with the opposition in North Korea and China will be worth it.

There have been several rounds of New Deals, and many things are still in the ascendant. The tax reform will not see results until next year.

However, the first new policies implemented a few months ago have brought good results to the Han Dynasty.

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(End of this chapter)