The first thousand two hundred and ninety-two chapters fight hibiscus to grab gold
Although his rank is not high, Xia Wuyan is still the imperial envoy in charge of Fusang affairs, and can barely be regarded as a high-ranking official of the empire.
Therefore, Xia Wuyan also knew some of the empire's policies and knew that the empire had always wanted to increase its gold reserves and then establish a gold standard system.
For this reason, the empire has been collecting gold in recent years. It is said that the Ministry of Finance is collecting massive amounts of gold in order to finally implement the gold standard system. The scale of the collection is not calculated in two, but in tons.
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For gold, the empire even went to the far-away places of Australia and America, let alone the nearby Fuso.
In recent years, the empire's trade in Fuso has mainly focused on exporting goods and then exchanging them for various gold and silver.
Nowadays, a large gold mine has been discovered, and it is a gold mine on an island. It is not located in the Kanto region of Honshu Island like the Toi Gold Mine, so it is not surprising that Xia Wuyan is tempted.
However, although it is already planned to send troops to Sado Country, a battle has just been fought in Osaka, and the 1st Mixed Brigade, which is the main force, is still in Osaka, so it will be difficult to dispatch troops to Sado Country at this time.
In this regard, Xia Wuyan was not in a hurry. Anyway, the Fusang area was already under the control of the empire. Whatever he wanted to fight and where he wanted to fight, it was basically the empire's final decision. He was not in a hurry.
While Xia Wuyan was struggling in Fusang, domestic regions also officially started the official issuance of legal tender!
In November, the empire officially announced to the world through the Tang Dynasty newspaper that starting from the 16th year of Xuanping, it would officially implement the abolition of the two reforms and the introduction of the legal currency "yuan".
The content of this announcement is relatively detailed, and it basically notifies the people of what they are concerned about, including some detailed measures after the abolition of the two reforms and the reform of the Yuan Dynasty.
For example, original bank notes can be exchanged for new currency at a one-to-one ratio.
At the same time, private minting of silver coins is prohibited, banks are prohibited from issuing banknotes, etc., and currencies minted by foreign countries are prohibited from circulating in the country.
In order to avoid social unrest and hinder the empire's financial reform policy, in fact, the abolition of the two reforms and the reform of the Yuan Dynasty this time have more symbolic meaning, but there are not many actual changes, especially some things that are closely related to the people have not changed much.
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The wealth owned by the people, whether held in the form of existing silver notes, gold coins, silver coins, copper coins issued in the past, or even silver and gold bullion minted by private individuals in the previous dynasty era and even today, does not need to depreciate.
Case.
For ordinary people, perhaps the biggest change is that the original banknotes are replaced by banknotes.
However, this change, which does not seem to have much practical content, is of great significance. As long as the empire promotes the concept of legal currency and allows the people to gradually accept legal banknotes, then the subsequent empire can truly implement it.
gold standard policy.
And gradually transitioned the daily currency from precious metal currency to banknotes.
This is what the empire hopes to see most.
The imperial edict announced in November did not cause much turmoil, not even in the stock market. People calmly accepted the fact that legal tender will be issued next year.
After such a good start, Li Xuan felt a lot more at ease. Now it seems that after many years of habit cultivation, the people of the empire are no longer very resistant to the banknotes issued by the government.
By December, the empire had completed preparations for the abolition of the two yuan reforms. The Mint under the Ministry of Finance had already minted a large number of new coins in advance, including gold coins, silver coins, and copper coins.
These currencies are issued according to the currency value of the new legal currency.
Also issued were a large number of fiat banknotes.
These silver coins and banknotes have been reserved in advance at many branches of the Royal Bank and the Imperial Bank according to a certain proportion. As long as they wait until the 16th year of Xuanping, they can be officially issued nationwide.
During the preparation process, December passed quietly. At the end of December, according to the empire's many years of tradition, it was naturally the time to formulate the fiscal budget for the following year.
When formulating the fiscal budget, the currency unit had been renamed Yuan from the previous two.
Of course, according to the detailed policy of abolishing liang and replacing it with yuan, one yuan is actually worth one tael of silver. Therefore, the data are the same, but the units have changed.
However, according to the gradual changes in the ratio of gold to silver, the value of one dollar will gradually become more than one tael of silver in the future. There is no way, who makes the silver imported into the empire from all over the world become older and more, and the value of silver continues to depreciate.
In late December, after debates between the military and the cabinet, and then internal debates between the army and the navy, and the cabinet itself having many debates, the fiscal budget for the 16th year of Xuanping was officially determined.
The central fiscal revenue budget for the 16th year of Xuanping in the Tang Empire was 100 million yuan. In this fiscal revenue budget, the primary industry, that is, planting, breeding and other agriculture, animal husbandry, forestry, fishery and other related industries, contributed
The central fiscal revenue is about 40.5 million imperial yuan, accounting for 45%.
Just from this ratio, we can see that the primary industry is still very important to the Tang Empire.
You must know that this figure is actually the result of the Tang Empire's strict control of agricultural taxes. In order to support domestic people's livelihood and encourage mulberry farming, except for the early unification period when the Datang Empire raised agricultural taxes due to the gap in military expenditures, in fact, in other years,
Generally speaking, agricultural tax collection has been lowered.
Otherwise, it would not have been so many years ago that agricultural tax revenue has declined instead of increasing. You must know that the area of arable land has continued to increase in the past few years.
Tax reductions and subsidies in various ways were also important means for the Tang Empire to reduce the burden on farmers, improve their quality of life, and stimulate the activity of the rural economy.
Agricultural taxes have not increased for many years, but the fiscal revenue of the Tang Empire has increased year by year, and the increase has been very large. This is naturally due to the development of industry and commerce.
In addition to taxes from agriculture, the remaining fiscal revenue naturally comes from industry and commerce. Taxes from industry and commerce include many types of taxes, such as special taxes on salt and tea, tariffs, corporate income tax, corporate value-added tax, personal income tax, stamp duty, etc., which exceed
More than 100 types of taxes.
Among them, corporate income tax is the key point!
Originally, there were a lot of tariffs, but in order to encourage overseas trade, the Tang Empire adopted low tariffs. Moreover, the trade of the Tang Empire today is mainly export trade, and the imports are only some raw materials, but the quantity is actually very small.
Therefore, corporate income tax has become the focus!
As long as you are engaged in industry and commerce in Datang, no matter what industry you are engaged in, as long as you are doing business, you have to pay taxes.
So whether the business is running well or not, whether it makes money or not, we don’t have to say, but the tax bureau definitely has taxes that can be collected.
Thanks to the rapid development of domestic industry and commerce, the tax revenue contributed by this industry and commerce industry has only increased from 20% in the early years, to 30%, to 50%, and then to 100% today.
About fifty-five percent.
In fact, according to statistics from the Ministry of Finance, if all taxes are counted, the proportion of taxes from industry and commerce will actually be larger, reaching more than 60%.
However, in actual practice, because many places generally adopt tax reduction and exemption policies to attract companies to settle and invest, many industrial and commercial taxes cannot be collected.
For example, the famous Lingao Fishery Industrial Zone, which is famous for its fishery development, has always adopted very preferential investment policies. In addition to national policies, local finance even dares to directly return most of the tax revenue to enterprises.
Lingao Fishery Industrial Zone can be regarded as a relatively extreme industrial zone. Other cities will not be so extreme, but this situation will happen to some extent.
In this case, the empire actually lost part of its tax revenue, but this was also a sacrifice that must be made in the process of development!
For many places, if tax incentives and other incentives are not used as attractions, capital will simply not go there to build factories. Under the same conditions, why don't they go to Shanghai? Instead of going to a poor place like yours to invest.
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For the sake of local development, all local government offices in the empire are dedicated to applying to the central government for preferential policies to establish various industrial zones, and in order to support local development, the central government of the empire sometimes has to approve them.
If it were not for the loss of a large amount of tax revenue due to these, the tax revenue contributed by industry and commerce could at least increase by more than 30%.
But then again, if it weren't for the various generous policies provided by the empire, domestic industry and commerce would not have been able to develop so rapidly.
The fiscal revenue budget for the 16th year of Xuanping is 100 million yuan!
If the empire has strictly controlled fiscal revenue and expenditure in recent years, the fiscal expenditure budget will not be too much or too little. It will probably be 100 million yuan, and it is very likely that it will be 100 million yuan, leaving part of it as a fiscal surplus.
But this year, the fiscal expenditure budget has reached an astonishing 110 million yuan. This will lead to a fiscal deficit of up to 100 million yuan. Such a fiscal deficit is almost invisible in previous years.
However, despite the increased fiscal deficit, the total military expenditure received by the military is the same as in previous years, and the administrative expenses of various cabinet departments are basically the same as in previous years.
However, this year's fiscal expenditure budget totals only 95 million taels of silver. In other words, when this year's fiscal expenditure budget reaches 110 million taels, including military expenditures, many budget ratios in the past are relatively small.
Correspondence dropped.
Where did all the extra money go?
All of this additional fiscal budget, totaling 15 million yuan, will be used for water conservancy construction.
The emperors and ministers of the Tang Empire were frightened by this year's massive floods in the Yellow and Huaihe Rivers. Thousands of people were killed and injured, and the affected population reached tens of millions. Not to mention the economic losses, the most conservative estimate was more than 50 million.
They were worried that similar large-scale floods or droughts would happen again in the future, so both Li Xuan and the ministers in the imperial study were determined to improve the water conservancy facilities even if they were trying to sell iron.
To this end, they not only used the increased fiscal revenue this year, but also prepared to issue national bonds worth up to 10 million taels of silver.
And this money will, without exception, be used to build water conservancy facilities across the country.
With so much money poured into it, Li Xuan didn't believe that water conservancy construction could not be completed!