Changes in the textile industry are just one example.
More and more various industrial products continue to appear on the market, allowing people to enjoy various products in the industrialization era, and also allowing the industrial and commercial economy of the Tang Empire to show an extremely good development momentum.
In the winter of the 22nd year of Xuanping, a report submitted by the Ministry of Commerce stated that the industrial and commercial output value in the 22nd year of Xuanping had increased by a full 23 percentage points compared to the 22nd year of Xuanping!
At the same time, the Ministry of Taxation also submitted a tax report. The report stated that due to the vigorous development of domestic industry and commerce, tax revenue from industry and commerce has also increased significantly, and this increase has been at least 15%.
Moreover, this increase has not fully tapped into the potential brought about by the development of industry and commerce. Officials from the Ministry of Taxation have already assured that by the 23rd year of Xuanping, the increase in tax revenue from industry and commerce will definitely be able to
It will catch up with the increase in industrial and commercial output and increase happiness, or even exceed it.
Li Xuan was very pleased with this, but he did not forget to instruct the tax department that when collecting taxes, we should not just focus on those enterprises, but also pay more attention to other types of taxes, such as personal income tax.
This personal income tax has been implemented in Datang for more than ten years, but the results have always been modest. Only government employees, enterprises affiliated to the Ministry of State-owned Enterprises, and a few other large-scale private enterprises pay personal income tax completely in accordance with the tax law.
Only a small number of employees.
However, this is limited to this. In fact, the vast majority of people do not pay personal income tax.
Based on the current total population of the Tang Empire, the number of people paying personal income tax is only about 0.2%.
There are many reasons for this. One of the main reasons is that in order to avoid widespread anti-corruption among the people, the starting point for collecting personal income tax stipulated by the Tang Dynasty is very high. Only those whose monthly income exceeds three yuan need to pay personal income tax.
And this is just a number. Basically, most people cannot achieve the monthly income of three yuan. This basically means that the vast majority of ordinary workers do not need to pay personal income tax. The only ones who need to pay personal income tax are their salaries.
High-income groups such as relatively high-level technicians, managers, and government employees.
At the same time, the tax rate at the starting point is also very low, only five percentage points. Although it is tiered, the income level of ten yuan is the second step, and the tax rate is only seven percentage points. After a monthly salary of fifty yuan,
Its tax rate has only reached 15%.
Fifteen percentage points is the highest personal tax rate.
The excessively high starting point for taxation has resulted in fewer people paying taxes and a relatively low tax rate, which has resulted in the individual tax collected being actually very small.
Li Xuan was a little dissatisfied with this. You must know that in modern countries, personal income tax is a very important tax. Even in modern countries, personal income tax is very important.
This is not just about how much tax can be collected, but more importantly, personal tax is an important means to balance the gap between the rich and the poor.
The gap between rich and poor is not only an issue in modern countries, it is also a very sensitive issue even in a modern country like the Tang Empire that has initially entered industrialization.
Li Xuan planned to take precautions and take measures in advance.
Personal tax is just one of them. In the future, Li Xuan plans to levy more taxes to balance the gap between rich and poor, such as inheritance tax.
Historically, many aristocrats in Europe were still living a prosperous life even in the modern capitalist era, but why did they become bankrupt after the 20th century? This is because of inheritance tax.
If an heir wants to inherit an inheritance, he needs to pay a high inheritance tax. After paying the inheritance tax, his family property will inevitably shrink and he will become a noble with no title.
However, the inheritance tax is too destructive. Although Li Xuan is now very prestigious, he does not plan to levy any inheritance tax at this time. If there is an inheritance tax, I am afraid that middle and high-level officials across the country will strongly oppose it.
.
So Li Xuan still has to find a suitable practice to do it. Now, it's a little early, so he can just do the tax first.
And as for personal income tax, the tax department is still a little cautious now, and only levies personal income tax on salaries.
But no matter what era it is, only a part of the people are purely paid, let alone in the country of the Tang Empire. More people's income does not come from wages, but from other aspects, such as doing
Money earned from business, money earned from investing in stocks.
Due to practical difficulties, it is basically difficult for the tax department to supervise many cash transactions. Otherwise, the tax department would not have to fix any enterprise. Whether it is a large enterprise or a small shop, they must open public accounts and fund them.
All transfers must be made through public accounts.
But regulations are dead, and people are alive. For example, in many shops, no matter whether they are restaurants or small shops, the bosses collect cash and do not record the income and keep accounts. Even if their tax department has great skills, it is very difficult.
It's hard to find out.
Therefore, for the supervision and taxation of cash transactions by small merchants, this super difficult problem cannot be solved for a while, but for many other aspects, especially many transactions conducted through bank accounts, there is no problem at all in collecting taxes.
So Li Xuan instructed the tax department that this tax should not be limited to salary income, but other personal income must also be included, such as making money from investing in stocks, making money from starting a company, and even making money from gambling.
It all belongs to personal income. Since it is personal income, personal income tax should be collected!
As for how to collect taxes and what the tax rates are, Li Xuan won't dictate. A large group of experts in the tax department are calculating how to collect taxes every day.
Collecting taxes is an art for us!
The people were happy because they collected less, but the government finances were running out of money!
Needless to say, if you collect too much, people will definitely have big opinions. If the opinions are big enough, it will cause big trouble.
Therefore, the tax proportion of any type of tax is calculated and considered repeatedly, and it is definitely not decided at once.
As for how to collect it, this is even more of a skill. When your tax department wants to collect taxes, it means taking money from people's pockets. Even if you say it's a thousand or ten thousand, people are not willing to hand over the money obediently.
Even though Datang's tax laws are very strict and the consequences of tax evasion are very serious, the prerequisite is that the tax department must obtain evidence.
Moreover, although the current tax laws of the Tang Dynasty are extremely complicated, there are many smart people in this world, and they will always have various legal means to evade taxes. Although this tax evasion makes the tax department hate it, it does not mean that
Everyone who evades taxes will be investigated.
Because there is a problem of law enforcement costs. There are many people who evade taxes, especially those small businesses, and few of them pay taxes honestly. But if the tax department really strictly enforces the law, the investigation cost will be huge.
Come on, the tax department doesn't have that many law enforcement officers.
Moreover, Datang’s legal system gives judges a certain right of comprehensive consideration. Therefore, when targeting vulnerable groups such as small businessmen, judges will often favor them. Unless your tax department comes up with solid evidence, otherwise
Otherwise, the judge will not convict these merchants at all, even if there is evidence, but usually they will only order the payment of taxes, and will not impose too severe punishments.
Because this has to consider the social impact, it is not easy for these small businesses. If many businesses and even small businesses do not avoid personal income tax, they will really have no way to survive. Therefore, judges tend to favor these small businesses. The Ministry of Taxation targets small businesses in prosecuting them.
, there are at most about ten convictions out of a hundred cases, and all others are dismissed. Even those who are convicted, most of them only need to pay back taxes.
Of course, this kind of thing can usually only be done by small businesses. If it is a large business or large enterprise that dares to evade taxes, the tax department will let them know why the flowers are so red in a minute.
The Ministry of Taxation says there are a hundred ways to deal with tax evasion. Whether to investigate or not is nothing more than a matter of law enforcement costs.
It's not worth it to deal with small businesses in such a big way, and they can easily get into trouble and be called vampires by the public. But it's different with big companies. If a case is completed, it will be a big case, and the taxes and fines collected will be
Not to mention many, and the people will generally applaud it, and they themselves will gain greater fame as a result.
Even the censors of the Supervisory Yuan and even the judges in the courts are often more inclined to attack these big companies and gain fame for themselves!
Attacking the weak will ruin your reputation and affect your career.
But if the attack is on big companies, it's different. Who wouldn't give a thumbs up and say you are awesome and a good official?
Therefore, although tax evasion is still very common at present, it is limited to ordinary individuals, small shops, and some small and micro enterprises. Medium and large enterprises do not dare to do this!
An overview of the current tax system of the Tang Dynasty shows that compared with later modern countries, it is actually still very imperfect. Even for most countries in modern times, it is still somewhat inferior. However, as far as you are concerned in the mid-16th century, it is
It is an epoch-making product.
Otherwise, why Datang's fiscal revenue can reach 200 million a year is because the tax department is so powerful!
Now that the Taxation Department has received the latest instructions from Li Xuan, asking them to focus on studying individual income tax issues in the next few years, a large number of experts in the Taxation Department have also begun to immerse themselves in work.
Although the overall individual income tax improvement plan would not be ready for a while, in order to let Shengtianzi see the results of their work, they still came up with a small improvement plan in the short term.
That is to expand the scope of personal tax collection in a small area, from being limited to salary to investment income, including income from investing in stocks, investing in enterprises and other various investment activities, which are included in personal income tax.
Within the scope of income tax collection.
Of course, the tax rate has also been reformulated. In the past, the maximum was only 15%, but now, it has been raised to 25%.
The new personal tax plan is scheduled to be implemented in the 23rd year of Xuanping. However, this new personal tax plan has not caused much response, and what is quite strange is that all parties have expressed satisfaction with it!