"But what does this have to do with tenant farmers?"
Lü Yijian frowned, spread his hands and said, "The main problem in our Song Dynasty is that there are too many landless refugees."
"You're saying it like the classic saying of later generations: What does this have to do with my monthly salary of 3,000 yuan?"
Zhao Jun smiled and said, "You can't say there's no connection. You know, according to the statistics of the Audit Bureau, on one side of the Song Dynasty, landlords own a lot of land, while the poor have no land to farm. On the other side, there is a lot of wasteland that no one is reclaiming. Do you know why?"
"Taxes, seeds, farm tools, and water."
Lu Yijian said indifferently.
"That's right. In the early stages of any dynasty, the people are encouraged to open up wasteland. However, in the middle and late stages of the dynasty, many lands are left uncultivated. This is the reason."
Zhao Jun pointed out the crux of the problem: "To reclaim wasteland now, even before the grain is collected, a tax must be paid. For landless refugees, they are extremely poor, and the only land they can reclaim is wasteland with insufficient water. Farming tools, seeds, and water are all problems. How can they reclaim the wasteland?"
"So Han Long's reduction of taxes and labor service was to give the people a break, while also allowing local officials to have money to build water conservancy facilities and irrigate farmland, facilitating future reclamation of new land?"
Yan Shu immediately understood.
"right!"
Zhao Jun snapped his fingers and said, "You can't just shout slogans at the national level, saying we're going to build more water conservancy projects. That's useless. You have to get local governments to take action, and then the lower levels will be the ones to carry it out. So, while agricultural taxes may seem to have been reduced by half, keeping the money at the local level is the only way for them to get things done."
This is the significance. Now, for the entire country, it is necessary to restore people's livelihood. To restore people's livelihood, it is necessary to keep money for local development. Therefore, agricultural taxes have indeed been reduced, but for the Song Dynasty as a whole, it has become much healthier.
Although the beneficiaries are the self-cultivating farmers and landlords who own land, once the landlords have a good harvest and reduce taxes, no one would want their tenants to become fewer and fewer and leave their land uncultivated. They may reduce the rent for the tenants to make their lives more comfortable so that others can continue to exploit them.
Secondly, after the overall people's livelihood recovered a little, local governments had relative financial resources to build water conservancy facilities, make full use of water resources such as rivers and lakes, dig and build a large number of canals, and repair river channels, thereby encouraging landless people to reclaim wasteland, increase the number of self-cultivating farmers, and reduce the number of tenants.
Third, and most importantly, pigs are easier to slaughter when they are fattened. Taxes on self-employed farmers and landlords are being lowered now, and in a few years new agricultural taxes can be enacted to further lower taxes on self-employed farmers and increase taxes on landlords.
From a long-term development perspective, the current agricultural tax rate has indeed decreased. However, as long as we persist, future development will be even better.
"What about commercial taxes?"
Lu Yijian asked again, "Commercial taxes have plummeted so much this year. I'm afraid this doesn't align with your plan of gradually reducing agricultural taxes and increasing the proportion of commercial taxes."
Zhao Jun shook his head and said, "Wrong, it fits perfectly."
"oh?"
Lu Yijian frowned: "How does it fit in?"
"First, after the commercial tax reform, the business environment will be much more relaxed, which will promote business development."
Zhao Jun said: "Secondly, we are in the early stages of the reform. The commercial tax has not been reduced, but it has not been collected yet. Once it is on the right track, it will gradually increase."
"But there seem to be too many ways to evade taxes. They can collude with the IRS, cook the books, and even work with local officials."
Wang Zeng noticed the key point.
Zhao Jun sighed, "That's why we need to form a tax army and strictly inspect taxes. In the future, the national tax system must be gradually separated from the Ministry of Finance and established as the National Tax Department. This department must not only have its own courts, but also its own armed forces. This will ensure that taxation is deeply rooted in the hearts of the people and that all the people of the Song Dynasty can become honored taxpayers!"
The commercial tax reform only changes the way taxes are collected, not any reduction or exemption.
For example, in the past, if you brought 10,000 guan worth of goods on the road, based on a 20% commercial tax, you would have to pay 2,000 guan in taxes before you even started selling them.
Taking into account other costs such as labor, travel expenses, employee food, drink, and toilet expenses, before the sales funds come back, you have to spend at least 15,000 strings of cash to sell 10,000 strings of cash.
But now the court allows you to take these ten thousand strings of cash worth of goods to the place of sale, sell the goods first, and then pay the 2,000 strings of cash in taxes.
The back and forth may seem similar, but in fact, for businessmen, what they lack most is not whether there is a market for the goods or whether they can find sales channels, but whether there is a turnover period for the funds.
In the past, when the goods had not even been sold and so much cost had already been spent, in order to quickly recover the funds, merchants might sell at low prices even when the market was sluggish, resulting in losses and bankruptcy.
If goods cannot be sold now, they can be stockpiled temporarily and sold when the market conditions improve, thus avoiding bankruptcy.
The two thousand strings of cash saved became working capital.
And under the progressive system, taxes on small-scale trade are relaxed. For example, if you do a small business of a few strings of cash, the tax may be very low.
If you do a big business worth 100,000 guan and the profit reaches 80,000 guan, then perhaps 40,000 guan of it will have to be used for tax.
It is a policy of focusing on large businesses and letting go of small ones, which can both prevent capital exploitation and promote the vigorous development of small-scale trade.
The only drawback is tax evasion.
That's why Zhao Jun wanted to form a tax army. After all, the Song Dynasty really had no shortage of people, officials, or soldiers.
The corvée labor can be assigned to local garrison troops and imperial guards, as well as to tax troops. It can also solve the problem of a large number of soldiers doing nothing every day and just lying in the barracks to collect salaries.
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