Chapter 756: The Empire Still Wants to Pay Me Back
Lingze Star has never been so busy.
This is a planet located in the west of the Spider Web Universe - Tangu Star Region, and is the capital of the Lingze Star Region.
Before the war, this planet had a well-developed star port system and served as a transportation hub connecting the central territory of the empire with the Spider Web Universe.
During the war, this place also became a key target of contention, but fortunately the Empire repelled Iron Armor after a war, and since then this place has been controlled by the Empire. Even during the Iron Armor's counterattack phase, the ground and starport parts of the planet were garrisoned by the Imperial Army, and Iron Armor's fleet skipped this planet.
Later, when the Western Front Army was reorganized, Lingze Star was used as an important logistics hub. Countless transport ships transported all kinds of war materials here, unloaded them, and then distributed them to various battlefields on the front line by small transport fleets.
During this stage, the Lingze starport system, which had suffered some damage due to the war, was not only urgently repaired, but also further expanded and constructed.
The location is good, and the planet itself has good hardware conditions as a transportation hub. After the Alliance took over, this place was chosen as the place where the Alliance and the Imperial Center would pay imperial taxes.
Originally, Lingze Star, as a transportation hub and a logistics center during the war, had many ships coming and going, and the waterways were extremely prosperous.
But all the prosperity in the past cannot be compared with the prosperity after it became the place for imperial tax payment!
Although the Alliance Plan was signed less than a year ago, the delivery of imperial taxes has already begun.
The tax collection cycle agreed upon between the Alliance and the Empire is every two years. However, the Alliance is now so large that it controls nearly 10,000 worlds. It is no longer possible to wait for the tax collector to come and handle the affairs as it did in the past when the Alliance was smaller.
The Alliance Plan stipulates that the Alliance must collect all the taxes from the fourteen star regions at once. It is impossible to wait until the tax period is approaching to start this work, otherwise the tax work will definitely not be completed.
In fact, long before the "Alliance Plan" was signed, the alliance had a special imperial tax working group that moved into Lingze Star and started working.
This working group is a high-level working group specially set up under the Union Ministry of Finance, reporting to both the Union Prime Minister and the Finance Minister, and has great power.
The responsibility is also great.
It is solely responsible for the collection of imperial taxes for the alliance.
A large number of transport ships, including the Chamber of Commerce fleet within the alliance, were allocated to the working group for use.
They can directly call upon the official transport ships of the alliance; however, they need to pay some money to use the ships of the chamber of commerce, and the ships will operate in the form of the chamber of commerce fleet taking on transportation orders.
At this moment, the head of the working group, Director Guo Chenyu, was accompanying Gu Hang, who was on his way back to Lingze Star, to inspect the tax situation together.
At this time, it has been seven months since Gu Hang left Holy Terra.
Tax work is of course very important, so much so that Gu Hang turned around to take a look on his way back to the Dragon Eagle Star Region.
"...Our tax work is going relatively smoothly. The materials transported from all over the star field have accumulated to 432.7 billion tax coins. There are also more ships coming to transport materials and store them on Lingze Star."
"It is expected that a batch of ships from the central empire will arrive in three months and will transport 160 billion tax coins worth of materials. After that, a batch of ships will arrive approximately every month. It is estimated that it will take eight months to transport the remaining 640 billion tax coins worth of materials. At this point, the alliance's first tax collection work is completed."
According to the Alliance Plan, the tax amount for the first year of the alliance is 300 billion, and 500 billion in the second year. The first installment of tax payment totals 800 billion.
Then, it will grow to 800 billion in the third year, 1 trillion in the fourth year... and so on. It is a non-linear growth. The annual growth amount is the result of arguments between officials from the Alliance and officials from the Imperial Tax Department, but in short, by the tenth year, it will grow to 2.1 trillion and maintain this number.
Gu Hang nodded slightly, his eyes quickly flipping through the documents, and his spiritual energy enveloped the huge star port system of Lingze Star, quickly checking and verifying whether the contents of the documents were consistent with the actual situation.
There are definitely some inconsistencies.
But Gu Hang is not the kind of person who is always critical.
It is normal for some errors and omissions to occur in the movement and statistics of materials on such a large scale.
It is necessary to give a little advice and a warning, but it is not necessary to impose heavy punishment for this.
No one is perfect.
Generally speaking, there are no problems.
Afterwards, Gu Hang asked about the second phase of the imperial tax and the large-scale infrastructure construction that Lingze Star had made for the imperial tax.
Guo Chenyu answered them one by one, and it was obvious that he was confident about them.
The first tax payment was only 300 billion, but Lingze Star had already stored more than 400 billion in supplies. The extra money was obviously in preparation for the next tax payment.
In fact, the ships from the central empire will not stop after delivering the first batch of 800 billion tax coins. The ships of the empire will run a batch per month, or even a shorter cycle in the future. During the third and fourth years, the second phase of materials totaling 1.7 trillion tax coins will be delivered to the central empire.
And so on.
The same will be true when it stabilizes at 2.1 trillion in the future.
To transport such a large amount of materials at one time, even for the central government of the empire, it would be difficult to immediately mobilize so many ships.
We can only do this in batches, with a batch of ships being sent out every month or even every week.
Of course there is a cost, and the empire still needs to bear the transportation costs from Lingze Star to the center of the empire.
However, this cost is completely controllable.
Like the general universe, we have to negotiate with local governments, including the star domain and the universe domain, about how much you keep and how much I take. Although there is a quota for this matter, if you are not careful, your 40% is 100 billion and my 30% is 150 billion. The local government has sufficient motivation to use a series of means such as false reporting, concealment, and reasonable calculation of losses to negotiate with the Imperial Taxation Department.
All of them require negotiation, compromise, threats, and even the use of force when necessary.
It's all cost.
Not to mention, there are many minor details. Arguing about who will bear the tax and transportation costs between star regions; arguing about who will bear the escort work in the middle; arguing about who will be responsible for the spoilage of materials during transportation, expiration date, improper storage, etc.
With an alliance, you don’t have to consider these things at all.
Fixed quota, fixed point.
The tax officials came to count the amount, and after the count was completed, the fleet came to transport the supplies. It was simple and clear.
However, there is a problem. Lingze Star’s infrastructure can handle the taxes of the past two years without much problem.
However, in the third and fourth phases in the future, the amount of taxes the alliance has to pay will rise to more than one trillion.
At that point, Lingze Star’s infrastructure will no longer be able to withstand the pressure.
In Guo Chenyu's plan, Lingze Star is building a new star port, called "Tax Port". At the same time, on the surface, a huge tax storage space city is also under construction. There are cargo space elevators for direct and rapid transportation of goods between the space storage city, the ground storage city, and the tax port, as well as fixed spacecraft orbits that are cheaper but can transport goods on a larger scale.
Once completed, Lingze Star's cargo throughput will be three times what it is now, and it can fully shoulder the tax cargo throughput work of the future alliance.
There is even enough to provide to the Imperial Chamber of Commerce's trading fleet to trade bulk commodities with the Alliance.
It is worth mentioning that the total cost of this "tax port system" is very high. It is divided into four construction periods, a total of eight years to complete, and a part of it can be delivered for use after each construction period. The total cost is 70 billion tax coins, which is equivalent to the cost of a battleship.
However, this money is not paid by the alliance.
This matter was mentioned when the Alliance officials were discussing many of the implementation details of the Alliance Plan with the officials from the Ministry of Taxation in Holy Terra.
After heated discussions, the alliance officials secured a benefit: the construction funds for the Lingze Star Tax Port would be provided by the Imperial Taxation Department.
The Taxation Department will definitely not allocate funds, and they are also unwilling to spend money to directly recruit and hire a construction team to work on Lingze Star.
It doesn't matter. If the alliance can do it, just pay the money. If you don't want to pay, then deduct it from the taxes.
The tax department agreed.
After all, this is also the necessary investment and construction for the smooth implementation of tax work.
What's more, although they are the ones who pay, it is counted as a deduction, so the pressure is much less.
Speaking of deductions, the alliance's tax deductions include more than just the construction of the tax port.
70 billion is not a small amount of money, but its authenticity is not critical.
The most critical issue is the Alliance’s war expenditure during the Iron War and the Zerg War.
The Imperial Center should reimburse me, right?
This was the promise made when the Western Front Army was formed, and it is also the political tradition of the empire.
In the empire, local rulers have the responsibility to ensure the safety of their country and territory. Planetary governors should ensure the stability of their own worlds. Putting aside the more abstract level of star regions, star domain and space domain governments also have the responsibility to ensure the safety of their own jurisdictions.
This is also the fundamental reason why the empire leaves a portion of the imperial taxes to the star domain government and the universe domain government.
Without money, how can we let people build and fight?
However, this part of the responsibility is mainly limited to guarding the homeland.
For example, the safety of the planet is solved by the planetary governor. If the planetary governor cannot solve the problem, then the governor is derelict in his duty and should be removed or executed. Then the star region will request the star region government to intervene and mobilize troops from other planets to support, or even the star region government will intervene directly. These troops from other planets who come to support cannot fight in vain, and the star region government has to pay for it.
The internal problems of the star domain government are solved by the 30% of the imperial tax received by the star domain government. If they cannot be solved, they will ask the chairman of the universe domain for help, and the "leader of the princes" will personally take action or summon troops from other star domains to solve the problem. This part of the money will be paid by the universe domain government, which also retains 30% of the imperial tax.
By analogy, when there is a big problem that the universe government cannot solve, or when the empire advocates launching an empire-level war in a certain direction, then Holy Terra will mobilize the core troops of the Solar Universe, or call on troops from other universes to participate in the war. And the money will naturally be paid by the central government.
The Iron Armor War was undoubtedly a war that spanned the universe, requiring a large number of troops to be mobilized from other places to participate in the war. The Spider Web Universe itself was no longer able to resolve the problem internally.
The Alliance responded to the Empire's call, an act of loyalty that no one could fault. The Iron Armor War was not within the Alliance's scope of obligation, so it was only natural that the Empire should pay for it.
Of course, due to the urgency of the situation, even if the central government of the empire had money, it would be difficult to allocate supplies to various places where troops were to be dispatched in a short period of time.
What's more, the imperial central government often does not have that much money.
This means that the supporting troops often need to bring their own dry food.
This was the situation for both the Northern and Southern Legions during the Ironclad War.
On the one hand, other local troops participating in the war had some political demands, and on the other hand, the central government would reimburse them for the money they spent on the war.
Either you pay money afterwards, or if you really can't afford it, then you can pay tax coins to offset the tax amount.
This is common practice.
The alliance spent a lot on the war.
The cost of building the army does not need to be paid by the central government of the empire, but the many consumed artillery shells, sacrificed soldiers, destroyed army equipment, naval ships, fuel consumption... these all have to be counted, right?
Equipment loss, rewards after victory, payment of allowances during the war... they also have to be calculated in money, right?
What's more, when the war broke out and the Southern Front Legion was still fighting in the Menghe Star Region, Holy Terra made a clear promise when it came to the cannon fodder that attracted Iron Armor's attention in order to urge the Alliance to move north as soon as possible.
Clear regulations, political conventions, pre-war promises... all these things combined made it impossible for Holy Terra to renege on its debts.
This money should be paid by the Ministry of Military Affairs.
But the Ministry of War obviously didn't have that much money.
According to conservative estimates, the Ironclad Wars cost the Empire over 100 trillion tax coins. Among them, the construction of the two Western Front Legions was basically paid for directly by Holy Terra, which alone amounted to 50 trillion.
The empire did not pay for the northern and southern lines, but the cost would still be 50 trillion.
For the alliance, according to the calculation, the total expenditure is 16 trillion.
This is the number after the Ministry of Military Affairs cut and cut again. The victory rewards were cut a lot, and the Alliance troops on the southern front, unlike the northern front, had many casualties, many ships exploded, and many land forces lost, so they had to pay a lot of pensions and compensation.
But even with the data calculated in this way, the central government of the empire still found it difficult to accept.
Sixteen trillion, what does that mean?
The total tax revenue of the alliance increased from 300 billion to 2.1 trillion, which added up to only 12.7 trillion in ten years!
What you mean is that after signing the "Alliance Plan" and giving you Lord Gu Hanggao, I, Holy Terra, will still give you 3.3 trillion?
(End of this chapter)
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