The next day's meeting lasted until the afternoon.

After everyone dispersed, Wang Yan, who seemed to be in a good mood, invited everyone to climb a three-story building located in the northeast corner of the sanatorium, Wanghu Tower, and planned to have a feast here.

Wanghu Tower was built in 1660, consuming a large number of century-old wood, bluestone, bricks and other building materials, once made the Dongfang Hotel Group Company have a toothache, after all, they are also renovating many industries including Shanhou County Sanatorium, Iguasu County Sanatorium, Hue Hotel, etc., and the financial pressure is not small. However, the Wanghu Tower was eventually built and officially opened to the public in 1663, becoming one of the main choices for banquets in the minds of successful domestic businessmen.

At today's banquet, there were actually not many participants, but there were only seven or eight people such as Wang Yan and Huang Hanhua, and they just got together at a table. The dishes on the table are not good or bad, and the most conspicuous ones are obviously dishes made of kangaroos imported from Australia, which makes everyone a little discolored, how can kangaroo meat be eaten?

However, Wang Yan's face did not change, and he was like rain, and he had eaten more than ten chopsticks with a glass of wine. While eating, he smashed his mouth, shook his head, and there was a lot of nostalgia in his expression, which made people can't help but suspect that this Dongfang Hotel suddenly ordered a lot of pickled kangaroo meat and kangaroo jerky, isn't it the handiwork of this master?

"The tax reform work conference is finally over today, and the results are relatively satisfactory, and everyone has no opinions." After eating a few pieces of kangaroo meat, Wang Yan put down the chopsticks in his hand, wiped his mouth with a napkin, and said to everyone present: "These are all your joint efforts, my old Wang is not blind, I understand, as long as we work together and work hard in the future, I will always ensure a good future for you, and you will not suffer losses." ”

In fact, after the so-called third tax reform plan was formulated, it has been circulated among several high-level bigwigs and relevant counterpart cadres, and everyone should have put forward their opinions has been raised, and they have not mentioned much of their opinions, so this draft has basically been put in place, and the next stage will begin to be implemented on a trial basis - at today's meeting, there are also people below who suddenly proposed whether to include coal, red bricks, cement, lime, rice and other materials in the list of unified tax collection, and as a result, the participants quarreled and shouted, and finally it was over. Of course, this is all a small episode, and it does not affect the overall situation.

But then again, coal, building materials, rice, these things are actually very widely used in the East Coast Republic of China. Especially in places like the steppes on the east coast, which have a large population and developed economy, but there is a great lack of firewood, whether it is industrial production or people's daily needs, they need to buy coal products, and if a unified special tax is levied, the income is very high. Building materials are the same, now many old areas of the house are decades old, reconstruction, expansion is in the wind, the demand for building materials is very large, coupled with the boost of the country's large-scale infrastructure projects, the building materials industry in the next few decades of long-term prosperity is probably not able to run, so everyone proposed that in addition to wood, but also on red bricks, cement, lime or something to levy a unified tax, in order to help the country.

Wang Yan, Li Qing and others considered that three new taxes were introduced at once, and that an additional tax of more than 2 million could be collected (considering the tax refund factor, there may not be so much in fact), and the government should be satisfied in a short period of time, so they decisively vetoed it. That's the next tax reform, and it's going to be implemented now, and the people's burden will increase, so the opinions should not be small, although the taxes on the east coast are already less than those in other countries.

In addition to spending half of the additional 2 million yuan in taxes for health and education and repaying old debts, they will basically be used for national defense, railways, highways, reservoirs, wharves, forts, warehouses, and venues. In particular, the military department, which has had a very sad time in recent years, is expected to make big progress, especially after the news from Spain has returned. Wang Yan poured himself another glass of wine, and while tasting it as if no one was around, he was talking about some gossip, of course, the level of these "gossip" seemed too high, and it was not an exaggeration to say that it was confidential.

Wang Yan mentioned just now that a considerable part of the new tax will be used for national defense spending, which may not be particularly accurate, because according to the plan, nearly 800,000 yuan will be used for the navy, and the army will only receive a little more than 200,000 yuan, and the difference in treatment is quite obvious.

It is said that since the signing of the peace agreement with the Kingdom of Portugal many years ago, the Eastern Republic has set the tone for disarmament to save money, and it has been slowly implemented in the following years. Today's army and navy on the east coast, the expenditure can be regarded as being compressed to a certain extent, and the army may be able to take advantage of the east wind of the Franco-Dutch war to "borrow the corpse to resurrect the soul" and jump twice, and make up for some dissatisfied battalion heads, but the navy has been living a hard life these years, and the military expenditure it gets every year is only enough to maintain, the mothballed ships cannot be restored, the demobilized personnel cannot be reinstated, and the old ships cannot be renewed, but it doesn't work well.

Fortunately, this time, the navy finally got through the way, and obtained a relatively unanimous opinion from the executive committee, which could use a total of 800,000 yuan of the unified tax, inheritance tax, and tobacco and alcohol tax from 1681 and 1682 (the three new taxes were only levied on a trial basis in some areas in 1680) for the purchase of new ships, the extension of the life of old ships, the overhaul of old ships, the inspection and maintenance of mothballed warships (in preparation for joining active service), and the recruitment of personnel, with a view to restoring the navy's combat strength to a certain height as soon as possible. After all, the navies of the European continent are now developing rapidly, not only the scale of the naval standing forces (mostly professional warships) of England and the United Provinces is getting larger and larger, but even the Kingdom of France, which was relatively lagging behind in development, has built new ships under the will of the monarch, and its strength has increased rapidly, as evidenced by the defeat of a Dutch detachment commanded by Druidter off the coast of Catalonia last time.

Therefore, based on this understanding, the people on the East Coast now have to increase their investment in the navy, otherwise who will protect your overseas interests, which can be regarded as no small amount? Do you rely on friendship with others? I'm sorry, but this is the practice of a small country like Portugal, and the people of the East Coast are not so decrepit!

According to the Navy's plan, the "Executive Committee" class warships, which cost a huge amount of money, should not be built for the time being, and the maintenance of the existing "Executive Committee," the "East Coaster," and the "Liberator" is already very head-wrenching, so why bother making trouble for yourself? What's more, although this kind of warship has strong firepower, but the center of gravity is too high, it is more dangerous when crossing the ocean, and it is quite difficult to fight in rough sea areas, such as the North Sea in Europe, and the hull structure is also damaged, and the cost of maintenance is really not low, so it is not an exaggeration to say that it is cost-effective.

What they really focused on was to redesign a sail-hybrid, steam-hybrid twin-deck battleship, like the original August 10 class, as the main force of the fleets. And this battleship was accompanied by a large number of "throttle" class gunboats of considerable tonnage - modified ships also needed to be overhauled, and the navy required the addition of steam power, which required a redesign of the hull and center of gravity at a considerable cost - and "Star" class light cruisers, so that they could be used as auxiliary forces in the decisive battle of the large fleet with the enemy.

The cost of a plan of this scale is naturally not small, and it may not be enough to scatter more than one million, because this is almost equivalent to reorganizing half of the fleet, and the cost is naturally not a small amount. You must know that during the Second Anglo-Dutch War that year, the Dutch spent a winter to build on their already good foundation to build a fleet (refitting ships, purchasing weapons, recruiting personnel, training and training, etc.), and spent more than 10 million guilders at once. Continued investment during the war continued, and in the end it cost more than 10,000,000 silver dollars to make the fleet stronger, and finally defeated the British, and gained dominance in the North Sea and the Mediterranean.

In addition to some ships that have gone missing because of shipwrecks, the strength of the navy on the east coast has dropped considerably, and the previous policy of making small repairs and repairs can no longer be maintained, and it has reached the point where it is necessary to make a large investment, otherwise the enemy will advance and we will retreat, and overseas interests will not be guaranteed.

"In the past, when we only had an income of two or three million yuan, we felt that we didn't have enough money. Later, the government's fiscal revenue exceeded 10 million yuan, which was a great increase compared with before, but the result was still insufficient, and it also reached the point of borrowing money for construction, which is really incredible. It's good now, the fiscal revenue is more than 20 million, but why is it still in debt and there is no money to use? Our country's mess, the bigger it gets, the bigger the more places to use money, and when you have no money, you can only borrow, and when the debt reaches a certain level, and gradually can't afford the principal and interest of the debt, you can only raise taxes, and it's really helpless to think about it. Hearing Wang Yan talk about the country's swelling spending, Huang Hanhua also felt something and sighed.

"The increase in government spending over the past two decades has become a remarkably widespread fact and cannot be questioned. The reason for this is probably because of the development of the times, and the central and local governments of various countries have not only increased the number of new functions or functions, that is, the implementation of old and new functions has also increased efficiency and completeness compared with the previous so-called. As a result, public spending is expanding day by day, which is not unique to our country. Huang Hanhua's henchman, the director of the General Administration of Taxation, and the man with glasses also opened his mouth at this time, only to hear him continue to say in a unique tone that is not clear: "The east coast is a newly created country, and it has only been 50 years since then. Moreover, China's policy is based on the expansion of hegemony, which is quite different from that of small countries that are concerned with a policy of peace, and the costs of military affairs, diplomacy, colonialism, intelligence, justice, administration, public health, education, construction, agriculture, industry, commerce, and public debt are all all-encompassing and increasingly numerous, and the increase in military and civil affairs expenses has become very visible. ”

"Moreover, in recent years, the government's spending has been increasing and the nature of social and economic activities has become increasingly complex, so the issue of separating central and local expenditures has become important." The middle-aged official, known as "Director Kong", continued, looking very interested: "Our country has a distinction between national tax and local tax, but in my opinion, there are many things that need to be improved urgently, and it is also the direction of our efforts in the next stage. Last month, the General Administration of Taxation (GAAT) set up a committee on the division of fiscal and taxation resources to study the division of central and local fiscal resources. The principle of division is consistent with the distribution of duties between the central and local governments, and there are three brief descriptions: 1. The interests of the general people should be attributed to the central government; If the matter belongs to the local interest, it should be returned to the locality. 2. Those who need advanced technology and intelligence should be returned to the central government; Those who need fine supervision should belong to the locality. 3. Those whose needs for action are consistent shall be attributed to the Central Committee; Those who act according to local conditions should be local. ”

"The distribution of duties is an element in the division of financial resources, and according to this principle, the allocation of various important expenditures belongs to the central financial expenditure, for example, military expenditure, security is the greatest interest of the whole society, so military expenditure is paid by the central government; Judicial expenses of the two - the law is consistent and the implementation is uniform, and it is also for the benefit of the whole society, so it is paid by the central government; The three diplomatic expenses - diplomacy is mainly based on the state, so whether it is the diplomatic expenses of the central government or the diplomatic expenses of local districts and counties, they should be paid by the central government. Both the central and local governments, such as police fees, education fees, etc. Among them, the establishment of the police, in order to maintain national order, is in the interests of the public, according to the principle, should belong to the state, but it is presided over by the local government, relatively economical, and easy to supervise, so the ordinary solution is assigned by the central and local governments. As for education expenses, primary education has a close relationship with the place where it is located, and should be local expenditure, but education is related to the happiness of the whole society, so higher education should be sponsored by the central government. For those that belong to the local government, such as the cost of relief, sanitation and construction (except for major projects run by the state), most of them are for local interests and should be local expenditures, but under special circumstances, if the local government is unable to raise it due to too much demand or other reasons, the central government may subsidize it at its discretion. ”

In fact, the core content is that the central and local governments are going to carry out the reform of the tax sharing system, which is also a major discussion of the third tax reform, and does not rule out the possibility of improving the implementation in the next few years. In the past, the government on the east coast had relatively weak financial resources and had limited powers, while the central government pocketed most of the tax and public revenues, so that local governments had to rely on land finance to survive. In this case, what kind of promotion of primary education and medical and health services are still being talked about, isn't it nonsense?

This time, the officials of the Executive Committee also made up their minds, feeling that the country has developed to the present level with more than 4 million people, and that the original fiscal and taxation system is gradually becoming inadequate, and it is necessary to continue to carry out in-depth reforms.

There is no doubt that this kind of reform will have a tremendous impact on the state's fiscal and taxation system, and the central government's financial resources will become smaller, and it is difficult to say how much of the more than 20 million yuan of fiscal revenue belongs to the central government and how much belongs to the local governments. However, such reform is also necessary, as a country aspiring to build a civilized lighthouse society, the division of powers and responsibilities and financial resources between the central and local governments should be clear and unmistakable, and it is not normal to be as crude as before.

Therefore, the reform of the tax system is imperative! 10