Chapter 895 You have to pay taxes for smuggling salt!
Immediately Chen Lifu threw aside the files of other salt merchants, and then looked at Yang's files. This salt merchant was not considered the top salt merchant in the pre-Ming Dynasty, but according to various sources,
, after the Tang Dynasty King's Army captured Yangzhou, the Yang family became the largest private salt dealer in Yangzhou City and even the entire Jiangbei Province in just a few months!
But again, Chen Lifu doesn't care whether the Yang family is a private salt dealer, he only cares about the Yang family tax evasion!
It doesn’t matter whether your Yang family is engaged in private salt business. Since you are doing business, you have to pay taxes. If necessary, the Grain Collection Department of the Ministry of Taxation can give you a guidebook on how to file taxes for the income obtained from selling private salt.
, correctly guide private salt dealers to pay taxes!
In other words, the Grain Collection Department of the Ministry of Taxation doesn’t care what you do to make money, but since you make money, you have to pay taxes!
At the beginning, the officials of the tax department shouted: 'Even if you want to rebel, you have to pay the taxes first'!
As the largest private salt dealer at present, the Yang family has made huge profits from selling private salt. Naturally, this tax evasion is also the largest. In the files Chen Lifu has read, tax investigators have not yet accurately estimated the Yang family’s tax evasion.
How much tax has been evaded, but it is estimated that it should not be less than 100,000 taels!
As a scholar from a traditional landowning gentry background, although Chen Lifu had great sympathy for the ordinary gentry and landlord class, this sympathy did not include salt merchants!
In the view of Chen Lifu, who had a strong official-centered mentality and traditional Confucian thinking, these salt merchants deserved to be killed, and it was only natural that the imperial court should turn to them when it ran out of money.
So he immediately ordered that the Yang family be investigated, thoroughly investigated, not just the Yang family, but also other well-known salt merchants!
Immediately, members of the tax inspection team were moving around, and their investigation methods were different from traditional patrol police. Their focus was not on various smuggling activities themselves, but on money!
The first stop of the investigation was to directly investigate the account and fund changes of the above-mentioned salt merchants at the Royal Bank and several other private banks with branches in Yangzhou and Huai'an Prefecture.
What I have to say is that the Royal Bank is a good thing. Even the salt merchants or other businessmen and gentry who did not like the Tang Dynasty liked the Royal Bank.
Because of the Royal Bank's large number of business locations and strong strength, it makes it more convenient for merchants to carry out various business activities. Banknotes for cash transactions, checks specifically for merchants, and even large bank cashier's checks are all
What businessmen need.
And when these businessmen deposit their money into the Royal Bank or other new private banks established and reformed in accordance with the new regulations, they are actually exposing their account books to the Grain Collection Department of the Ministry of Taxation.
Even if they use fake accounts and use various accounting methods to avoid investigation, it is still difficult to escape the investigation of the tax department unless you directly use a large amount of gold and silver for transactions.
As a result of this investigation, the tax department quickly discovered the problem!
The problem was not a big one, strictly speaking, it was relatively small. They discovered that the company account of a restaurant under the Yang family's name had frequent large-amount fund flows in the past few months.
Although this restaurant has paid taxes in accordance with business standards, such frequent large-amount capital flows naturally immediately aroused the alert of tax investigators, because it is impossible for any ordinary restaurant to do this frequently for several days.
Funds ranging from ten thousand taels to tens of thousands taels of silver are flowing.
Immediately, the tax officers first conducted an inventory of all the fund transactions of this restaurant!
The next day, members of the tax inspection team sealed the restaurant, searched the account books, and compared the restaurant's account books with the bank's fund changes, and concluded that the restaurant had concealed a large amount of income and evaded taxes.
The tax evasion amounted to more than 5,000 taels!
Five thousand taels, this number is not small for ordinary merchants, but for the Yang family, it is just a fraction!
But does Chen Lifu care about the amount?
not give a damn about!
On the day the restaurant was sealed, he personally issued the order to arrest the core members of the Yang family!
Therefore, when the Yang clan people in Yang's Green Bamboo Garden were still discussing how to deal with the second inspection team sent by the patrol department, the tax inspection team came with swords, muskets, and even shotguns.
Pao knocked on the door of Yang's Green Bamboo Garden, and then, amidst the sound of surprise, took away the head of the Yang family and several other core members on the charge of tax evasion.
At first, the Yang family thought it was nothing, because they found that the tax inspection team took them away just because of tax evasion of five thousand taels.
No problems at all.
However, after the head of the Yang family was taken away by the tax inspection team, he never came back!
After interrogation, the tax investigators quickly expanded their results and dug up several more tax evasion bills. According to the final statistics, the Yang family had concealed a large amount of income. Well, these incomes were undoubtedly the income from selling illegal salt, but the tax investigators
But regardless of whether this is income from selling illegal salt, they only care about one thing: these incomes are not taxed!
Although tax investigators are not omnipotent, they still found out that the Yang family had evaded taxes of at least 50,000 taels, and such a large amount was enough for the tax inspection team to search the Yang family's home!
Therefore, there is no doubt that the tax inspection team immediately ransacked the Yang family and arrested all the men!
Immediately afterwards, the tax department directly handed over the case to the Supervisory Office, and the Yangzhou Prefecture Supervisory Office directly launched a public prosecution in the name of "concealing income, tax evasion, huge amount, and serious circumstances." The Yangzhou Prefecture Court ruled that the head of the Yang family and the 16th
Three core members were sentenced to death, and the remaining accomplices were sentenced to several years in prison and exiled.
The Yang family's case shocked almost the entire Jiangbei Province and even Jiangnan. Almost no one thought that the Yang family, which even local officials and even the patrol department were helpless about, did not end up having their homes confiscated and exterminated because of selling illegal salt.
It’s because I missed a mere five thousand taels of silver in taxes that I ended up like this!
Hell, even during the prosecution, the censor of the Supervisory Office didn’t even use the term “private salt”. The entire article was about tax evasion by the Yang family!
When the Yang family was involved in tax evasion, Chen Lifu did not stop his butcher knife!
In just a few days, the tax inspection team attacked all over Yangzhou City, and even called in the regular army stationed in Yangzhou to assist. They raided more than 30 salt merchants. During the arrest process, they killed more than 300 tax resisters and arrested one of the main criminals.
There were more than 100 people and more than 500 accomplices.
If you don't investigate a company, you can always find tax problems, which are just more or less tax evasion problems.
The most unlucky family among them was just because they had more than 100 taels of silver and did not take the initiative to file a tax return. Then they attracted tax investigators, and after arrest and investigation, the hidden problems were exposed.
Officials from the second salt industry inspection team of the Patrol Department who led the team to Yangzhou found that they had just arrived and had not even started doing anything. The illegal salt problem had almost been completely eliminated.
Because the Ministry of Taxation used thunderous means to directly take down the salt merchants in Yangzhou Prefecture. The charges they used were all about concealing income and tax evasion. They were all the result of confiscating the family and exterminating the clan, without exception!
These salt merchants left a warning to subsequent private salt dealers: Never evade taxes!
After the officials from the patrol department came to Yangzhou for a few days, they found that Chen Lifu from the tax department had nothing to do with them, because the illegal salt industry in Yangzhou had completely disappeared.
Then they returned to Jinling in despair, feeling very depressed about this!
What's even more interesting is that after hearing about this incident, the Minister of the Patrol Department who was driving north was so angry that he almost vomited blood and cursed at a group of Patrol Department officials, saying that they were incompetent and had lost the face of the Patrol Department.
Because this matter even reached Li Xuan’s ears!
Although the Eternal Saint King said nothing, the look he looked at him was a question to the Minister of the Patrol Department: Does your Patrol Department need the help of the Tax Department to deal with a few private salt dealers?
Chen Lifu's thunderous methods of tax rectification in Jiangbei Province were extremely fruitful. The tax department of Jiangbei Province recovered about 300,000 taels of tax and received a fine of nearly 2 million!
And this is not the big head!
In fact, the real bulk comes from the proceeds from house confiscation!
The Department of Taxation directly raided all the salt merchants in Jiangbei Province. Not only did they raid the salt merchants in Yangzhou, but they also raided the Huai'an Prefecture. They raided more than 50 merchants. In addition to the taxes and fines recovered,
Various assets worth more than 40 million taels of silver were also confiscated!
When this number was reported to Li Xuan, Li Xuan was almost shocked!
These salt merchants are rich enough. The more than 40 million yuan is comparable to the fiscal revenue of the Tang Dynasty in the six years of Xuanping. It is even twice the annual tax revenue of Nanzhili. You must know that after the rectification, Nanzhili
Si Dao, in the tax revenue budget for the six years of Xuanping, the estimated tax revenue was only 20 million.
The fiscal revenue budget of the entire Tang Dynasty in the six years of Xuanping was only more than 40 million taels. These salt merchants were really as rich as the country!
It is a pity that most of the more than 40 million taels of various assets confiscated are fixed assets, such as real estate, shops, fields, and various curios. These things take up a lot of space.
Most of the money is just over 10 million in cash.
And many of these properties are luxurious private gardens and various treasures. Although they are expensive, it is more difficult to sell them to raise funds.
On the other hand, those shops are okay, the bits and pieces can be sold directly, and as for the land, they will all be collected as official land!
But even if there is only more than 13 million taels of cash in cash, this is still a huge amount!
Li Xuan had just received the news and was sighing when all the important civil and military ministers down below came to Li Xuan as if they were going to the market for no other reason than asking for money!