"Director Huang, please come here." On March 18, 1682, on a farm outside Niuzhuang Harbor, some well-dressed officials sat on a table of eight immortals in the courtyard, looking through stacks of account books.

This is the self-operated farm of the Rabbit Hole Flour Mill Niuzhuang Branch, which has been in operation for some time, using many agricultural equipment including steam plows, seed drills, horse-drawn harvesters, horse-drawn drum rollers (used to clear the land and clear shrubs), steam pumps, threshers, and grain lifters, and the degree of mechanization is quite high.

But even with all the machinery, the farm still employed many non-national laborers, all of whom had been brought in at great expense from the island of Comoros, which had become a slave distribution center under naval control, and who had been working for two or three years at a time.

"Director Gao, this farm in your factory is well maintained. I've seen a lot of places, and the farms on the Pampa Plains are the only ones like you who are willing to pay for their own money, except for the state farms that are mainly exiled prisoners. A bespectacled Ministry official beckoned to Gao Jinzhong and said with a smile.

Gao Jinzhong has worked hard for many years, and now he is the director of the Rabbit Hole Flour Mill, and he also owns a lot of shares in it, so it can be said that he is the person who talks about this company at this time. Therefore, when officials from the Ministry of Finance and the Taxation Bureau came to various places to supervise the implementation of the new tax system, they directly approached him, the director of the factory, Gao Jinzhonggao, and planned to establish a typical case by completing the collection of the unified flour tax on this large enterprise, so that the following tax collection work could be successfully completed.

Of course, Gao Jinzhong is not very happy to pay taxes. However, as a member of the middle and upper classes on the East Coast, he also knows that the smooth implementation of the new tax system is very crucial to the future development of the country, and it can be said that it is related to the national economy and people's livelihood. What's more, the taxes set by the government on the east coast are, first, "clearly marked prices", clearly defined tax types and tax rates, and not arbitrarily increased taxes; second, the tax burden is already much lighter than that of the old mainland, because of its high tax collection efficiency, low loss in the intermediate process, and the fact that state-owned enterprises also contribute more profits, so there is no need to squeeze too much. Therefore, based on the above two reasons, Gao Jinzhong still decided to cooperate with the people of the tax office to pay taxes. I believe that as a typical example, their rabbit hole flour mill will not suffer losses, and they will be able to get some loan facilities in the future.

"There's no way, you can't recruit people, so you can only use machines. However, the scale of our farm is not large enough, so we will grow some wheat, beans, and vegetables for consumption in the nearby docks and factories. Look, you can still see from here, those spiky buildings are barns. Gao Jinzhong said with a haha. After speaking, he instructed two miscellaneous employees to serve a large pot of tea to everyone, and everyone would sit under a pear tree, breathe the fragrance of fields and grass, and drink fragrant green tea, which is also a kind of wild fun.

"Director Gao, as the third largest flour producer in China, your Rabbit Hole Flour Mill has always attracted much attention. Today I came to the Pampa Plain again to supervise the work, I hope your factory will cooperate with us, thank you. Huang Hanhua, who is said to be promoted to deputy director of the tax office next year because of his outstanding performance in tax reform (Chapter 89 of the previous article is wrong, Tang Moyu, who is the head of the Haizhu Island Commercial Station and the chief of the military police, has been revised) pulled out a chair and sat down, and said with a smile.

"Director Huang, you are laughing, our small temple can invite you, the great god, to come, it is really full of brilliance. Of course, I will cooperate with the work of the flour tax, and you can rest assured that I will send the personnel of the account office and the treasury to make a book, so that every account must be remembered clearly, and every bucket of flour will be clear. Gao Jinzhong said. After speaking, he looked at the group of tax and finance officials sitting in the courtyard, and at the same time felt a little pressure on the five or six armed tax policemen who were standing outside the door.

The Tax Police is an organization set up by the East Coast government last year and is subordinate to the Ministry of Finance — but it is said that the Tax Service will be separated from the Ministry of Finance in the future and upgraded to the State Administration of Taxation, which will be transferred to the General Administration at that time — and the establishment is tentatively set up as a reserve battalion of about 1,000 people.

The work task of the tax police, as the name suggests, is to prevent smuggling and collect taxes! Since its establishment, the tax police battalion has been deployed to Hejian, Patagonia, Chile, Jiaohe, and other areas where smuggling is serious. The counties and townships in these places border Spain and Portugal, and are relatively remote and the terrain is very complicated, so not only is the smuggling trade between local traders and workshops and the Spaniards extremely prevalent, but even the things produced by local workshops and factories are often tax evasion. Even, in some places where the people were fierce, violent resistance to taxes was not uncommon, so the call for the formation of a tax police battalion was finally implemented in the first half of 1681 after many years of shouting, and it was officially formed.

According to Wang Yan, a member of the Central Executive Committee in charge of finance and taxation, "After the reform of the national tax system, because of the increase in the tax burden, there is a lot of resistance in the local government. However, we do not have many tax collectors, the tax collection system is also very backward, the management system is full of loopholes, smuggling and tax evasion cases are frequent, and the state finances should be able to receive 20 million yuan on the surface, but in fact they can receive 145 million yuan and burn high incense, and the phenomena of tax arrears, tax evasion, and tax evasion are serious, and this has had a very bad impact on the development of the national economy and the operation of the government. Therefore, it is imperative to set up a tax police battalion to strengthen tax collection, otherwise it may shake the country's foundation. ”

Although there are some exaggerations in Wang Yan's words, there is a huge gap between the taxable and the actual tax he mentioned, which is also true. In the early years, local officials (mainly village officials) were still conscious and would help the government urge villagers and citizens to pay taxes, but now that more than 50 years have passed since the founding of the country, there are gradually fewer people willing to do so. There are a lot of things for local officials, and urging taxes is also a job to offend people, so it is natural to push and push, and to delay it, anyway, it is not the job of the township and village chiefs to collect taxes.

Based on this consideration, the Executive Committee finally agreed to form a new tax collection force: the Tax Police Battalion. The tax police battalion is a reserve force with all kinds of firearms and equipment, and in principle, it will be stationed at various key points to investigate smuggling, and in some places, because the environment is relatively harsh, the ordinary officers of the tax bureau also need to be accompanied by armed tax police to collect taxes, otherwise God knows what will happen to them, and this has been a lesson.

Of course, just one tax police battalion will definitely not be enough in the future, after all, there are more than 100 counties in the country, the territory is vast, the environment is complex, and the tax police battalion of 1,000 people will soon disappear. Therefore, the formation of the second and third tax police battalions should also be a high probability event, depending on when the boss finally agrees to be formed. In addition, in addition to these tax police battalions with muskets, cannons, and war horses, the tax department will also set up a tax police office in each township, and several tax police officers will be stationed in the town. On weekdays, there is generally nothing to do, but when you need to cooperate with the tax bureau officials to collect taxes, you can just go out and select some brave people with a thin reputation in the local area to act as tax police, so as to facilitate tax collection.

There is such a ruthless person in the tax police office of Gao Jinzhong's hometown Hekou Township, who was born as a Ming immigrant, worked as a salt dealer, and entered the White Lotus Sect. As soon as I drank two or two small wines, I went to collect taxes directly with my saber, and ordinary people were really cowardly when they encountered it. Gao Jinzhong vaguely heard that the brewing workshops in nine of the seventeen villages under the jurisdiction of Hekou Township were intimidated by the obscenity of this tax policeman, and there were really few who dared not pay taxes.

When Gao Jinzhong was in his hometown, he also invited the tax policeman to dinner twice, and the relationship between everyone was not bad. This person usually takes a deputy, wandering around the bazaar, restaurants and wine shops, and occasionally goes back to the tax police room to play mahjong with the people of the tax bureau, but once something happens, he puts on his armor and mounts his horse, carries a knife and a gun, and arrives in a quarter of an hour. Because of this, Gao Jinzhong, the tall factory director, is still very in awe of the armed tax police, and when he sees these people, he drums in his heart, and he is really frightened by the master of Hekou Township.

"The tax revenue of the state is taken from the people and used by the people. At present, domestic construction is in full swing, and all localities need money, so the state has deliberately reformed the tax system and levied several new taxes, including tobacco and alcohol tax, unified tax, inheritance tax, and so on, in order to expand fiscal revenue and better build the country. After all, our country is very different from those backward countries in the old continent, we do not use military force to wage foreign wars, we do not build useless things such as palaces and mausoleums, and we do not feed the moths that suck the blood of the country (such as the bannermen of the Qing Dynasty, the red-headed Turkmen cavalry of Persia, etc.), so these taxes are ultimately used on everyone. Huang Hanhua picked up a cup of tea, and Wen Yan said: "So Director Gao, you don't have to think nonsense, just cooperate normally, after all, we are not those broken tax collectors in the old continent." ”

Gao Jinzhong laughed twice after hearing this, and then confessed, turned around and arranged for the people below to cooperate with the tax inspection and taxation. At the same time, I was also thinking in my heart that in the future, probably many business owners who were used to tax evasion or tax arrears would be unlucky, and they would have to take the time to go back to Zhenhai County (there is no cable telegraph between Pampa and Patagonia and the steppes on the east coast), and told those people in their families not to cheat, otherwise they would be found to be ugly and suffer huge economic losses.

"I heard that in the past, the government planned to collect 20 million yuan in taxes, but in fact, it was good to be able to collect six or seven yuan a year, but a bunch of people evaded taxes and owed taxes, and there were even many incidents of beating up cadres of the tax bureau. In short, the tax police battalion exchanged fire with smugglers, and the ordinary tax police rectified the large tax arrears in the localities. Gao Jinzhong thought secretly in his heart.

The next work basically does not need to be interfered by Gao Jinzhong, Huang Hanhua and others. The accompanying cadres of the finance and taxation departments went into battle together, and together with the staff of the Niuzhuang branch of the Rabbit Hole Flour Mill, they counted the barrels of flour that were in stock and were ready to be transported, and each barrel was taxed at a rate of 5%. When he learned that a considerable part of this flour was to be exported to Spanish merchants in Buenos Aires, the tax officials also reminded him that he could apply for a refund of the 2.5% flat special tax on flour at the customs office of Niuzhuang Port, which is a right granted by the state to export merchants - although the grain produced on the east coast is not as surplus as before, it is nothing to export a part of it to foreign countries in exchange for cash or goods, so the export of barreled flour can still apply for tax rebates. It can be regarded as a disguised encouragement for grain exports, but I don't know how long it will last.

Gao Jinzhong naturally expressed his gratitude to the tax bureau officials for their reminder, and randomly invited everyone to have a light meal together on the farm on the grounds that it was almost noon, but Huang Hanhua refused. He will soon rush to the wharf and board a 150-ton offshore steam steamer that departs in the afternoon to the port of Nancun in Buenos Aires to inspect the tax police barracks and listen to their work reports. This is the itinerary that has been set, and for this reason I have tried to ask the small steamer belonging to the state-owned inland waterway transport company to postpone its departure for half a day, and I really can't wait any longer, so I can only say goodbye to the director Gao Jinzhong after some more precautions, and ride back to Niuzhuang Port.

In the afternoon of the same day, Wong, a pioneer tax officer on the East Coast, boarded the deck of the ship with six or seven retinues, and then headed north along the coast, and the next day arrived at the port of Nancun on the banks of the Río de la Plata, the largest trading point for merchants on the East Coast with Spain. The headquarters of the tax police battalion, which had already made a name for itself on the east coast, was located here, and it was suspected of violating the sovereignty of the Kingdom of Spain, but who would be serious about it? Not to mention the port of Nancun, now even Buenos Aires has become the backyard of the people of the East Coast, you can go if you want, you can come when you want, what can you do?

When Huang Hanhua arrived, about a company of men and horses had just gathered on the side of the tax police battalion, fully armed, and they didn't know what to do. After Huang Hanhua inquired, he learned that this group of people was going to a relatively hidden small dock to catch smuggling merchants, and he was very interested in him and decided to go with him, the commander didn't want to agree, but who made the family his boss, and in the end he could only pinch his nose and respond to this matter.