Two or three days after the autumn harvest every year, that is, at the beginning of August, it is time for the people to pay taxes to the imperial court. At this time of the year, the officials will leave the county government and go to the villages and towns under their jurisdiction to collect taxes one by one.
Taxes in southern Chu are divided into several types, including land tax, land tax and asset tax. In addition, there is poll tax, which is divided into adults and minors.
No matter how much the field tax is, each mu of land must hand over two stones of grain to the imperial court. Don't think there is not much grain for one stone. You should know that there is no chemical fertilizer and hybrid rice these days, and the field output is very limited. Moreover, there is no saying of rice sooner or later. There is only one harvest a year, that is, autumn harvest. As far as rice is concerned, the output per mu is only five stones, and the output of sweet potato and corn is more, but the imperial court doesn't want these, just rice.
In other words, the farmers worked hard all year, and less than half of the grain had to be handed over to the court as field tax.
During the Taiping period, taxes were relatively light. It is said that in the last years of the previous dynasty, the emperor was confused, treacherous officials were in power, corrupt officials were all over the government and the public, corvee taxes increased year by year, and the people worked hard for a whole year. In the end, there was not even a grain of rice left, and all of them had to be handed over to the court.
It was precisely because the people were forced to live that they rose up and overthrew the corrupt old court.
Nowadays, southern Chu only collects a small half of grain as tax, which is acceptable to the people, at least compared with the last years of the previous dynasty.
Land tax is aimed at residential buildings. It takes the area of residential buildings as the basis for tax payment. The larger the area, the higher the tax. About one stone of grain per mu of land.
Asset tax is relatively complex. It needs to record all the assets of people's homes first, and then determine the tax that should be paid according to the amount of assets. Generally speaking, farmers have no assets, and the tax that needs to be paid in this part is very low.
But the merchants are miserable. They all have their own businesses. All those businesses have to be calculated into the assets. When the officials calculate the taxes to be paid, the final figures usually make the merchants take off a layer of skin.
This is one of the reasons why merchants had a low status in ancient times. They usually had to pay more taxes than farmers. Even if they earned more, most of their profits would eventually go to the imperial court.
There are exceptions to everything. For example, those aristocratic families have all kinds of privileges. Even if their industries are all over the world, the taxes they need to pay are almost negligible.
The poll tax is very simple. Just collect the tax according to the poll directly. Adults over the age of 16 and minors under the age of 16 should pay adult tax. Each person should pay one stone of grain or two pieces of linen every year, and minors should be halved.
There is a very loophole in this. The law stipulates that adults only need to pay tax once a year, but there is no requirement for the poll tax of minors.
In other words, as long as the government is willing, it can increase the number of times of collecting and paying juvenile poll tax at any time.
For example, in the last years of the previous dynasty, the government collected excessive taxes and arbitrarily increased the number of times of collecting juvenile capitation tax. The most serious one can be increased to hundreds of times in a year. The direct consequence is that the people really can't take out food to pay taxes. They dare not have children. Even if they have children, they have to kill them quietly. It is said that abandoned or killed baby bones can be seen everywhere in the wild river, The tragedy can be imagined.
Now Jiang Weiwei has 270 mu of land at home. It is reasonable to say that he should pay a high tax, but because Gu Fei is a member of the family, he has the power to reduce or exempt taxes.
Her family only needs to pay one-third of the land tax of normal people, and the poll tax of her family is exempted.
As for the asset tax, if Gu Fei only raised people, the asset tax should be paid in full, but now he is not only raising people, but also from a fourth grade capital official, who enjoys the privilege of asset reduction, so this part has been subtracted by more than half.
Rao reduced and reduced like this, and Jiang Weiwei finally produced almost two hundred stones of grain.
One stone of grain is about one hundred kilograms of modern grain, that is to say, she will take out two thousand kilograms of grain at one breath and hand it over to the imperial court as taxes.
Fortunately, this autumn harvest has filled Jiang Weiwei's granary. In addition, she bought more than 4000 kilograms of grain from other places. She directly asked people to take out 2000 kilograms of grain and let the officials transport it away.
Jiang Weiwei didn't need money. In addition, the county officials knew that she had a father who was a general. He was polite to her. He was completely not as arrogant as the county officials said when they urged to pay taxes.
After counting the amount of grain and confirming that it was correct, the county official headed by Chong Jiang slightly arched his hands and filled his face with a smile.
"Dr. Jiang, thank you for your cooperation. Your taxes have been collected."
Jiang nodded and said, "in that case, I won't send it."
"No, no, no, you stay."
The county officials drove the carriage full of grain to leave the health hall.
Jiang Weiwei stood in place and watched them leave. She noticed that behind the grain truck, there was a donkey cart. There were three men sitting on the cart. They were all strangers and should not be from the village.
Two of the three men looked like servants in coarse cloth short clothes. The other was dressed in blue and straight, with a beard under his chin. He looked very gentle, like a scholar.
The gentle man noticed Jiang Wei's sight, looked at her sideways, and arched his hands at her from a distance. He looked very polite.
Jiang Weiwei couldn't touch the identity of the other party and didn't respond.
County officials from door to door collect taxes on the basis of registered residence books.
Jiang Weiwei watched the grain truck go towards the next family, and the donkey car always followed behind.
She couldn't help asking, "who's sitting in that donkey cart?"
A Tao and Xiu'er looked in the direction she looked at. After they saw the donkey cart clearly, they both showed disgusting expressions. It was obvious that they were very disgusted with the three people on the donkey cart.
Xiuer said, "that's the man sent by the Cao family."
Jiang slightly puzzled: "which Cao family?"
The person who answered her this time was song Hao. As a local snake, he was very clear about the local forces.
"The Cao family is a big family in Jiuqu county. Their family is very rich. They used to partner with Xu Ju Ren to open a Huitong ticket number. Later, Xu Ju Ren died, and all the Huitong ticket numbers belong to the Cao family."
The so-called ticket number is the bank. Jiang Weiwei has also been to the bank to withdraw money, but she has never heard of this Huitong ticket number.
She asked again, "why did the Cao family send someone to us?"
A Tao glanced: "every year when the imperial court comes to collect taxes, the Cao family will send someone to follow. If someone can't pay the taxes, the Cao family will appear and say that they can lend money to each other for emergency."
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