Three Kingdoms

  Chapter 983 tax reform

  Regarding taxation, it is actually a very interesting subject, and among all the senior intellectuals in the current Han Dynasty, the economic knowledge of those three-legged cats in Feiqian has a leading nature beyond this world.

At the end of the Han Dynasty, that is, at this point in time, why did the peasant households become more and more unable to survive, and the land became more and more concentrated in the hands of the gentry Haoyou. One of the important driving forces was all the taxes collected by the court that belonged to the head .

  The land tax is too low and the head tax is too high, resulting in an extremely unreasonable tax structure for the entire society. In the Han Dynasty, not only the oral tax, but also these corvees apportioned to everyone, caused the burden on ordinary peasant households to increase day by day, and eventually they were overwhelmed.

   And these things, you in the hall, can understand and grasp, in fact, there are not many.

Jia Xu looked at Fei Qian, even though he was a stable one, he was very surprised. Except for Zhang Liao, Huang Xu and other people who tended to be generals, compared with others, Jia Xu was actually more useful to the lives of ordinary people. Some people who feel it personally are even more grassroots than Zaozhi...

  Although Jia Xu said that he was the successor of Jia Yi, moving to Xiliang is tantamount to prodigal. It's like in later generations, as long as there are household registrations in Kyoto, it is estimated that not many people will voluntarily transfer their residence registrations to the Western Regions, right? Just like this, Jia Xu is also very aware of how heavy the taxation of this population is for middle-class or poor families. After hearing that Fei Qian wanted to cancel the taxation on the head, it was the last The first to react is also the most surprised, and even some sense of admiration that I don't know where it came from.

  This Fei Qian is really bold...

But Jia Xu is still a newcomer after all, so after the first few seconds, he gradually put away his surprised expression and regained his indifferent appearance, but after lowering his head, the eyeballs in the slender eyes kept rolling, how much It revealed the uneasy mood in his heart.

  Du Yuan repeated hesitantly: "Your Majesty's words... From now on, only land tax will be collected, not small tax?"

   Fei Qian nodded again.

"...This, I'm afraid it's a bit difficult..." Du Yuan murmured subconsciously, and seeing Fei Qian's gaze projected towards him, he quickly explained, "...Husband Shui Ye, if you give, you will be happy, if you take it, you will be angry. The nature of the people, everyone is like this...Although the people are happy to eliminate the small tax, where does the expenditure come from?"

   Feiqian nodded, expressing that he had heard Du Yuan's opinion, then turned his head to look at the others, and said, "You don't have to worry about it, you can speak freely."

Xun Chen cupped his hands and said: "The land is in decline, and the land is based on the real number. This is the Guanzi Yunyan, and the good is good... However, the land is searched for. There is a difference between the top and the bottom, and the edges, corners, thinness, and barrenness have deviations. , It’s hard to judge, if the officials profit from it, it’s difficult to detect it, and it’s a disaster for the country and the people. In the end, a good policy turns into a bad policy, so I hope you think twice.”

  Linghu Shao nodded, agreeing with Xun Chen's statement, and saying yes.

  Zaozhi really hoped to meet the people's taxes, but after hearing what everyone said, he couldn't help frowning. After thinking about it for a while, he found that he had no choice but to silently look up at Fei Qian.

  Fei Qian waited for a while, seeing that everyone was talking about the same thing, and had said everything, so he smiled, still somewhat surprised.

   It seems that these nobles in the Han Dynasty were not greedy and stubborn enough to be completely hopeless...

Fei Qian always thought that some people might propose purely theoretical things such as the law of the ancestors is immutable, and one law can be used forever, without talking about specific affairs at all, but now it seems that at least these people in the hall, That's not the case. Whether it's Du Yuan or Xun Chen, they all started with very practical issues, not just opposing for the sake of opposing.

Feiqian said in a deep voice, "Taxes are paid for by harvesting grains for food, and taxation is for military use. This is the original intention of taxes and taxes. However, after the pre-Qin period, there were many disadvantages, why? "

The head tax has existed as early as the Spring and Autumn Period and the Warring States Period. It became a practice in the Qin Dynasty. It has been preserved and has been used to this day. It will even continue in history until the Ming and Qing Dynasties. changed.

One of the main reasons why such a tax has been able to continue is that it is easy to calculate the tax. As long as any ruling class controls the household registration, it can easily collect population tax according to the household registration, no matter in terms of calculation method or even The collection channels are very simple, but becoming a refugee or a dead household is very expensive for ordinary people, and ordinary people will not do such a move unless it is a last resort. an important means of earning money.

The exploitation of the people by the Chinese ruling class, or the tolerance of ordinary people to these systems, is basically very high, just like later generations have repeatedly increased their tolerance for inflation. However, the interest rate has not been adjusted with inflation for a long time, or is much lower than inflation. In a way, this kind of negative interest rate operation is an additional invisible poll tax for the whole people.

  Why most modern societies have abolished the obvious poll tax, because although this kind of tax is efficient, it is the most unfair. From an economic point of view, the collection of poll tax can only widen the gap between rich and poor.

But in fact, not only in the Han Dynasty, but even in the modern society of later generations, in terms of taxation, the unfairness on the surface has been transformed into the invisible unfairness. Taxes in other names, such as personal…

To give a simple example, commodity taxation generally adopts a proportional tax rate. Intuitively, when taxing general consumer goods, the tax burden is higher for those who consume a large amount, and the tax burden is lower for those who consume a small amount. This seems to be in line with the principle of fair taxation .

  However, further analysis shows that the quantity of personal consumption goods is not proportional to personal income. Individuals whose personal income is several times, tens of times, or even hundreds of times higher than others can never spend many times, tens of times, or hundreds of times more than others on consumer goods.

  In the case of diminishing marginal propensity to consume, the taxation of goods is regressive. The less the income, the greater the proportion of consumption expenditure in its income, and the heavier the tax burden is, which leads to the fact that the tax burden is unfair.

  Secondly, when taxes are imposed on all consumer goods, due to the different elasticities of demand, the speed of price increases caused by taxation is also different. Usually, necessities of life are the fastest, followed by daily necessities, and luxury goods are the slowest. Therefore, the tax burden of commodity taxation will fall more on the majority of low-income people.

   Again, in any country, the number of wealthy classes and strata is always a minority, and relatively poor classes and classes are always a majority. On the whole, the tax burden of commodity taxation must be mainly borne by the relatively poor classes and strata in the majority.

  Rules always benefit the makers.

  This is the eternal truth.

It's just that those who are ruthless in exploitation will be overthrown soon, and those who know how to use small knives will naturally survive longer, but now, Fei Qian can only replace the original big knives with as much as possible. small knife...

   "If you want to change the past, now you have to..." Fei Qian paused for a moment, and then said, "Allotment is divided into mu, Hu Han divides taxes, and re-establishes the calculation system."

After Fei Qian finished speaking these twelve words, he couldn't help but meditate in his heart, don't lift the coffin board of a certain person in the future, but, according to the current timeline, this should be regarded as a descendant, and he doesn't know that it exists in Where, anyway, it's kind of messy...

  In the hall, after hearing these twelve words, everyone was a little confused.

  For these people in the Han Dynasty, this is definitely a hot new concept.

   "Talk into the mu, Hu Han divides the tax, re-established and counted?" Zaozhi tilted his head and murmured.

  Du Yuan was scratching his fingers thoughtfully on the sidelines, as if he was thinking about the impact of this tax rate if this is really done, or how to make it more appropriate...

   Wei Liu looked at Fei Qian, then subconsciously glanced at the southern sky outside the hall, rolled his eyes, and thought of something.

   Xun Chen twirled his beard, tilted his head slightly, and his eyes flickered.

After Jia Xu said from Fei Qian, "Allotment to the mu, Hu Han to share the tax, re-establish the calculation", he changed his previous indifferent appearance and looked at Fei Qian with piercing eyes, as if expecting that Fei Qian would continue to speak. Come up with something.

Fei Qian said loudly: "In the ancient country, the city was no more than a dozen cities, the land was no more than a hundred miles, the car was no more than a thousand vehicles, and the mouth was no more than ten thousand. Today, the Great Han has a hundred times its territory and ten thousand times its population. How can it be the same with the passage of time? What's more, this The system of taxation and taxation must be changed!"

"The moon is the new death, and it has been restored to justice. One year old, it is garrisoned, and one year old is used for hard labor. It is thirty times as old as the ancient one. The land rent, the tax, and the profit of salt and iron are twenty times the old one..." Fei Qian continued slowly. Said, "You should know this statement..."

  Basically everyone here has read some books, so they are no strangers to this passage. Even Zhang Liao knows something about it. Seeing Huang Cheng who was at the side looking a little dazed, he moved closer and explained in a low voice.

"At the beginning of the Han Dynasty, land taxation was lightened to encourage farming and mulberry. This is a good deed..." Fei Qian looked around at the crowd and continued, "However, in today's world, land taxation remains the same, and there is no additional taxation. Why? Is this the excessiveness of the land tax? In the pre-Qin period, the soldiers were all prosperous and the laws were strict, so why did they decline?"

  As soon as these questions came up, everyone was thinking silently.

   "Labor labor hurts the people! Therefore, it is necessary to divide the labor into the mu, and replace the corvee with land taxes! There are refugees and rebels who can be used for labor, so why force your own people?"

  Fei Qian came to the first conclusion decisively.

   Can only draw this conclusion. It can’t be said that it was caused by the annexation of the land of the gentry, and then point the finger at the gentry, asking the gentry to donate their wealth accumulated over hundreds of years for free for the benefit of the working people?

  So, this is a conclusion that is acceptable to both the upper, middle, and lower levels.

"Secondly, in our land, the Qiang and Hu live together, and they rebel or surrender, and they are indeterminate. Is it because our soldiers are not strong and our soldiers are not brave?" Fei Qian continued to emphasize, "This is because Hu and Han did not divide taxes. Dear! The Hu people are chasing water and grass, and they have no place to live. However, we will not think of a way to make it more than twice as much as the land tax. How can it not be reversed? Therefore, Hu and Han need to pay two points, the Han people pay the land tax, and the Hu people pay The animal tax is calculated according to the tribe, one out of twenty, and those under twenty can be exempted."

Hearing this, Jia Xu slowly closed his eyes, then sighed slightly, opened his eyes again, and solemnly bowed his hands to Fei Qian and said, "Your Majesty has great insight, but it's a pity that you can't go to court early... Why did the Qiang and Hu rebel against this move? If it is generalized and Yong merges with the two prefectures, it will fall into the hands of the princes and lords!"

Jia Xu has lived in Xiliang for a long time. In this regard, he has seen Qiang Hu more than anyone else here. Naturally, he also knows that it is not that Qiang Hu is naturally rebellious, but that sometimes he really cannot bear the pressure of Han officials. oppression.

How painful and cumbersome it is for a barbarian to pay for grain, grass and crops. Take the tax of stalks as an example. First, cattle and sheepskins and other tradable goods must be exchanged for coins, and then the coins are used to buy stalks and then paid. Tax, in this way, the difference is more than a little bit...

  As soon as Jia Xu's words fell, everyone's eyes couldn't help but become eager, and they exchanged glances with each other. The more they pondered Fei Qian's words, the more they felt that there was some truth in them.

"Thirdly, if there is land, there must be households, and if there are households, there must be fields. Those who have households but no land, move their households to the fields; To establish a military rank, half an hectare for common people, one hectare for public servants, and half an hectare for superiors. According to the title, each has land grants, and half of the land is taxed, and the people's land is twice that. Doubling it again, and so on. Exemption from the calculation of vehicles and boats, and setting up another merchant. Within three generations, they are not allowed to be officials, and their farmland acres are all taxed. The delivery tax is increased, and those who get coins pay their taxes. It is the same as Hu. One out of ten."

  Finally, Fei Qian revealed the most important trump card.

   A stepped land taxation system.

Granted land, that is, military merit land, can enjoy the lowest tax, while ordinary civilian land needs to pay normal taxes and land rent. If the land under your name exceeds twice your military merit title, you need to pay double the tax. There is no cap on this analogy...

  As long as this article is officially promulgated, it will increase the cost of land mergers. If you want to buy and sell land, you can, but don’t stop it, but the tax will change from granted land to private land. If the private land reaches a certain scale, then the tax will increase again. In this way, the profits generated by buying and selling land The effect will be diminished, so that the land will not be excessively concentrated in the hands of a certain person or a certain family.

  Wei Liu was stunned for a moment, and then he said hesitantly: "...Well, Junhou, if there is no noble in the family, wouldn't it be a heavy tax?"

"Of course! Juetian Keyin has three generations. If there is still no new achievement after three generations, he will transfer to Mintian..." Fei Qian glanced at Weiliu, and raised his voice a little, "Everyone! The voice on Qilin Pavilion is here, and everyone on the Yuntai Keep your energy forever! Han'er should lift seven feet, how can you say no to your descendants if you have no merit!"

   Zhang Liao clapped his hands suddenly when he heard the words, and said loudly: "Your Majesty's words are very kind!"

  Huang Cheng nodded again and again, and said, "This is the truth of heaven and earth!"

  Even Zaoyi, Linghu Shao and others on the side agreed.

At this time in the Han Dynasty, most of the gentry's children were still inclined to forge ahead, and they were not as lifeless as after the Song Dynasty. Therefore, Fei Qian's words also aroused the pride of everyone present, and they all nodded in admiration for a while, thinking it made sense .

   If you want to have benefits, then fight hard and get military merit!

"This is an auspicious time, and this is also an inauspicious time. Here is ignorance, and here is wisdom. This can be bright, and this can be dark. This may be believed, and this may be confused. This is a beautiful spring, There is also a poor winter of desperate thoughts..." Fei Qian said loudly, and then looked around the crowd, "... I would like to encourage you all..."

  All the people in the hall looked at each other, and then they clasped their hands together and said to Fei Qian in unison: "Wei! Wish to advance and retreat with the king!"

  (end of this chapter)