When the number of tax items increases, the level of taxation must increase, but this general view does not apply to the collection of variegated income in the Ming Dynasty. Although there are many tax items, the total amount of tax revenue is relatively small. In the best case, the maximum amount that could be collected was only 3,780,000 taels of silver [a figure that already included all taxes such as salt and tea], which was pitiful for the needs of the empire. …… Relative to such a wide range of levies, it can be considered that the level of levy is actually pitifully low"

Although many scholars criticized the Ming Dynasty for being too tax-heavy, they did so primarily on a moral level. Their main concern is to expose the greed of the collectors and the hardships of the people, rather than to explore the problems inherent in the tax system itself. Their descriptions give the impression that the main problems are caused by excessive taxation, when in fact these difficulties are more likely to be caused by excessive taxation. It should be noted that the 3,780,000 taels of silver that were collected in the motley years would have averaged only 17 taels of silver per person if it had been divided equally among the 150 million people in the late 16th century. ”

From a specific point of view, in the Ming Dynasty, except for the banks of the canal and the vicinity of Beijing and Nanjing, there were almost no commercial tariffs in other regions. "In addition to Jiujiang, the remaining six Hexiwu, Linqing, Hushu, Beixin, Yangzhou, and Huai'an are all along the canal; The object of the gate tax and the Chongwen gate tax is the goods entering and leaving Beijing; About 500,000 taels of the tongguò tax were concentrated along the canal and near Beijing and Nanjing. At that time, the development of domestic trade routes was already quite large-scale, and the taxation and establishment of cards were relatively lagging behind, and it was difficult to fully set up important areas in the rivers and lakes."

There is also an imbalance between the collection of commercial taxes in various regions, and in developed and prosperous regions, there is less commercial tax" There is a strict disconnect between the business tax amount of each province and region and the commercial level of each province and region, and there are two specific tables: for most provinces and regions, the commercial level and business tax amount are not consistent with their status in the country; There is a disparity between the commercial level and the amount of business tax in various provinces and regions, especially in economically developed areas such as Guangdong."

Huang Renyu gave an example that illustrates the absurdity of the situation.

"In Fenyang County, Shanxi, in 1609, the commercial tax was 6,606 taels of silver, and the tax amount was very high (in fact, the tax itself was very low, and the so-called high was also relatively low compared to other places, which was almost equal to the commercial tax at all). But in Jinhua County, Zhejiang, it was a very prosperous place, and in 1578 the quota listed was less than 7 taels, and the local chronicles frankly admit that the collection of commercial taxes had ceased for a long time."

From the perspective of some more important tax items, the industrial and commercial tax in the Ming Dynasty was low.

For example, in the Ming Dynasty, the city tax (equivalent to the import and export tax of the current customs) only needs to be compared with the income of some private maritime trade groups to see how low the tax collected by the government in the Ming Dynasty was. For example, according to records, the Zheng Zhilong Group, which rose during the Chongzhen period, "all sea ships are not allowed to be under the Zheng clan's banner, and they cannot come and go, and each ship earns 2,000 gold, and the annual income is tens of millions, so as to enrich the enemy country." At that time, the Dutch East India Company could not compete with the Zheng Zhilong group at all, both militarily and tradely. The German scholar Aldreehewiltn said, "He amassed at last a great fortune by means of a tyrannical business tax (two thousand gold per ship) and by his own speculative business, and his ships numbered three thousand, and he made his shipowners sail to Siam, Manila, Malacca, etc., and he was above his sovereign in terms of luxury and wealth." At that time, even the other members of the Zheng family were rich and rivaled the country, such as the household official Zheng Tai, who "guarded the Golden Gate and had millions of dollars", "was rich to 10 million", and "less than 1 million".

Although this is a matter in the Chongzhen period, it can also be compared with each other. Zheng Zhilong Group rose entirely by maritime trade, but only by virtue of the benefits of maritime trade

(This chapter is not finished, please turn the page) run and the collection fee of 2,000 gold per ship, it has reached "tens of millions of annual income", and then compare with the Ming Dynasty government, all the commercial taxes add up, which is a pitiful more than 3 million taels a year (of which the city tax is only 40,000 taels).

Another example is the salt tea industry:

In the past, the bulk of the state revenue in the Tang and Song dynasties, salt tea was monopolized, but in the Ming Dynasty, the government made very little profit. Regarding the monopoly of salt, "in 1550, the Shoshu of the Ministry of Household estimated that the government had actually levied only 40 percent of the total salt produced in the two Huai, and that the remaining 60 percent of the salt had gone into the hands of merchants who sold illicit salt.

……

There is no hope of cutting off the market for private salt, because the price of salt is not competitive. By the late 16th century, there was already a fixed market for the sale of illicit salt in some areas, and the allocation of smuggled salt quotas to the inspectors was in fact more like a casual management of the changed surplus salt silver.

In short, the monopoly system, hampered by inadequate government investment and successive management failures, is completely ineffective in making use of all the resources available. Although these resources are abundant and conceivably have unlimited potential for development, the monopoly system is incapable of exploiting them. ”

The record in Song Yingxing's "Discussion on Salt Politics" is also enough to illustrate the problem: "In the heyday of Wanli, the capital of (salt merchants) in Guangling was no less than 30 million taels, and the annual interest could produce 9 million taels, and only one million taels were lost."

As for the income from tea, it is even less pitiful.

In 1542, according to official reports, the amount of tea taxed in Sichuan exceeded 5 million catties, not including tea produced in government tea plantations. However, in 1578, the total revenue collected by provincial officials from tea did not exceed 20,000 taels. …… In the mid-16th century, the governor of Sichuan also acknowledged the widespread phenomenon of smuggling tea.

Tea classes in other provinces exist in name only. The vast majority of the region still used treasure money to assess local taxes, and when they were converted into silver in the 16th century, the tax was reduced to ridiculous proportions: 17 taels in Yunnan and about 6 taels in Zhejiang. A scholar at the time gave the following summary of this: "Tea households in the mainland have not known about official tea and private tea for a long time. The words of the world that make money are also unheard.'"

Zhejiang should be a major tea-producing province, and the tax on tea is only 6 taels, which can be regarded as a ridiculous joke. Positive taxes are inherently low, and tax evasion is quite common. This can be seen from the relevant records of Zeng Dezhao, a Western missionary during the Chongzhen period, in the "Chronicles of Great China".

"At customs...... There is more convenience. There was no room for stacking, weighing, and inspecting the goods, nor was it necessary to take them out of the ship, but only to inspect them and collect a proper tax according to the merchant's books. If a traveler is not a merchant, even if he is alone with a servant, carrying five or six chests and many other goods, he generally leaves his belongings on board when he travels from one place to another, and does not open them for inspection, nor pay taxes. This is a good example for the customs and tax offices of Europe, where the poor traveller is plundered and plundered with ferocity and savagery, and everything he carries with him is not enough to cover the taxes demanded from him."

Judging from this account, the so-called inspection of the merchant's goods is just a formality, and basically the merchant himself can pay as much as he wants. Even if you pretend not to be a merchant, you will not be taxed no matter how much goods you bring.

Under this kind of pretense of inspection, a large number of tax evasion and evasion may account for the vast majority of all business transactions.

And many tax evasions are even deliberately encouraged by government officials, who seem to think that as long as they can pay for what they collect, they don't care about the rest.

Huang Renyu recounted the following bizarre incidents: "He Xun was in charge of the Shashi Tax Department for ten years after 1510. Once the quota is completed, he reduces the pairs

(This chapter is not finished, please turn the page) Wood merchants levy taxes. In the twenties of the 16th century, Shao Ching-bang took charge of the Shashi Tax Department, and he adopted an even more astonishing reform, and after completing the quota in three months, he opened the customs for the rest of the year to be a timber merchant. In 1560, Yang Shi Qiao established an admirable system in Hangzhou, allowing wood merchants to conduct tax assessments by writing down their own income. These three officials have won high praise from traditional historians".

There is no question of whether the tax rate is high or low at all. If the tax rate is very low, such as one-thirtieth of what was stipulated at the beginning of the Ming Dynasty, but it can be really implemented, it will be a lot of income. And look at the practices of these people. One is to collect taxes for only three months, and to complete the quota (the so-called quota is naturally handed down in the past), it is equivalent to multiplying the original very low tax rate by a quarter, and the tax rate of one-thirtieth becomes 1/120 (in fact, it is even more offensive, because even in the three months when the tax is collected, it may not be collected seriously). The other one is simply to let the businessmen watch and give, and you can give as much as you like. Perhaps any businessman who is doing charity should give a little more (to be honest, those who are really charitable will probably give more money to begging than to pay taxes to the government).

Their faithfulness to the interests of the industrial and commercial groups naturally won the praise of traditional historians, who were also basically the spokesmen of the interests of the industrial and commercial groups.

It is precisely because of this grotesque situation that we understand why the following situations occur.

"In the early years of the empire, there were more than 400 tax offices, but by the early 17th century only 112 remained. The rest were closed as unprofitable. In 1568, the Ministry of Household Affairs reported that a certain tax department inspected and paid no less than 400 taels of food and food every year, and the amount of silver collected was only 110 taels."

The money collected was not enough for the tax collectors to eat, and it was indeed closed down.

We can also compare it with the situation during the Tang and Song dynasties.

"During the Tang Dynasty, salt alone reached 6 million yuan, accounting for half of all fiscal revenue. At the end of Shaoxing in the Song Dynasty, salt and tea were 24 million yuan, accounting for 49% of all fiscal revenue. During the Chunxi and Shaoxi periods, tea, salt, wine and other anti-metallurgical goods reached more than 36.9 million, accounting for 565% of the total fiscal revenue."

"In the Middle Tang Dynasty, the salt tax accounted for more than half of the entire levy, "Old Tang Dynasty Book: Liu Yan Biography": 'At the end of the Great Calendar, the tax was levied at the age of one year, and the salt profit was more than half.'" ”

Huang Renyu said, "When some Ming officials read the history books, they were surprised to find that the Tang Dynasty could get 6 million copper coins a year from the Lianghuai region alone."

Tea drinking in the Tang Dynasty was not very popular, and the tax rate levied on tea was already quite high, at first it was 10%, and then it increased by 50%, and then it was monopolized. At that time, the states and counties where the tea merchants passed were heavily taxed, or the boats and carts were plundered, and the rain was exposed; The provinces set up mansions to collect taxes. 'For the private trader to smuggle tea, a cruel and heavy penalty is adopted, and trafficking more than 100 catties is a capital offense. ”

If we put together salt tea and other commercial tax revenues, they account for far more than half of the country's total fiscal revenue.

In fact, this is still a conventional tax, if you count other temporary levies, it will be more, such as "Suzong ascended the throne, sent Zheng Shuqing and other wealthy merchants from Jianghuai and Shu Han to raise livestock, and two out of ten were collected, which is called a rate loan." The provinces also tax merchants to support the army, and those who have a thousand dollars are taxed. "That's the equivalent of a 20 percent property tax on every merchant."

(The above information comes from the Internet)

(End of chapter)