Liang Xinhu came to Guangzhou as a little-known ordinary senator. Except for the staff of the municipal government's general affairs department who was responsible for guarding the senators, almost no one among the naturalized people knew him. Over the years, he has been responsible for the work of the circuit court, touring Hainan step by step every month, and holding court hearings in counties or towns.
The cases vary in size, ranging from civil disputes caused by children peeing on the firewood to criminal cases of robbery and murder. The plots are not too complicated, and it is difficult for him, a law graduate with a bachelor's degree, to deal with them. Calculation is difficult.
However, now that we have arrived in Guangzhou, the complexity of the case has increased exponentially. The requirements of the Ministry of Justice and Liu Xiang are the same. Through case trials, the "spirit of law" of the Senate should be publicized, especially the civil and commercial law.
"Ancient Chinese law was very backward in terms of civil and commercial law," Liu Xiang said. "That's why we have so many myths about businessmen's 'faithfulness', but we also have the saying 'No business without treachery.' As far as our social practice is concerned Judging from the above, the businessmen of this time and space are also a complex group, neither too good nor too bad. However, generally speaking, they are 'rule-abiding' and have a certain degree of 'legal consciousness', which makes them relatively good in the entire society. A group with a legal concept. However, due to the government’s suppression and plundering for many years, the disregard for the interests of businessmen and the dangerous social environment, this so-called legal concept also needs to be put in quotation marks.”
"So we need to educate them..."
"That's right." Liu Xiang nodded, "Cleaning teeth is not a big deal, not a small thing. But it is in line with promoting our spirit of governing the country according to law and showing off our meticulous and effective governance techniques - and these are in the past What the traditional feudal government couldn’t do.”
"good."
“But I am also worried. Firstly, Yahang has too many bad debts, and I am afraid that even if the property is confiscated, they will not be able to offset their debt; secondly, Hongshang is taking the opportunity to retaliate or make a profit, and fabricates facts - Yahang is not a good person, and Hongshang is not a good owner. We cannot give citizens the idea that we are renovating for the sake of remediation."
"I completely agree with this." Liang Xinhu said, "In fact, it is not difficult. I plan to implement three principles in the entire aftermath: First, whoever makes the claim must provide evidence. If it is said that the bank owes the payment for the goods or needs to return the goods, it must be submitted. Sufficient evidence, no evidence does not count; secondly, the timeliness is only retroactive for two years, counting from the time we entered the city. Anything more than two years will not be questioned, so as not to be entangled in the past; thirdly, insist that this is a civil and commercial economy Behavior, do not engage in Qingtian Grand Master-style redress of grievances. If there are indeed criminal cases, transfer them to the police station for processing. The aftermath will not be handled."
"Very good." Liu Xiang nodded, "But what if we become insolvent after the cleanup?"
There is another hidden meaning in his words: the deficit is too big, and we will not be able to make anything.
Guangzhou's financial expenditure is based on looting houses to make a fortune.
However, this fortune must be made in a secretive way, and it must satisfy the masses, and it cannot be told lies with open eyes - it would be too ugly to look at it.
Liang Xinhu naturally understood what he meant, and he smiled and said: "Okay, you are doing a civil servant interview. In this case, I will explain it in more detail."
The specific measure is to adhere to one household per case and not to consolidate accounts. Zhang San's debts will be paid off with Zhang San's property and not Li Si's property. For serious deficits and insolvency, a proportional payment system will be adopted; finally, an unlimited liability recovery system will be adopted.
"...The Ming Dynasty did not have the concept of limited liability, and our use of unlimited liability for recovery is in line with common law. And from the perspective of judicial practice, most businessmen in this time and space are family businesses. It is necessary to understand what is family private property and what is private property. It is almost impossible to acquire corporate property. What’s more, their property has very little cash and is mostly converted into private real estate such as land and houses. It is too cheap for them to have limited liability. Although limited liability companies are the trend in the future, they cannot do so now. There’s no need to do it.”
After Liang Xinhu finished speaking, he added: "I have looked at the situation these days and feel that our legal propaganda is not enough."
The biggest fear of the Guangdong natives, especially the common gentry and businessmen, was that they knew nothing about the laws and ways of doing things of the Senate. They did not know what the Senate wanted to do and why it did such a thing.
Even though they have long known that Australians value trust and the law, they are confused as to how to do this and whether they will violate taboos, which can easily cause various unnecessary misunderstandings. If someone from a certain force is arrested while performing official duties, it is not originally aimed at this force, this group, or this ethnic group. It is just that this person has broken the law. However, because they have no concept of equality before the law in their minds, or I didn’t understand why I would be punished for something that was trivial or a matter of course in the Ming Dynasty, so I thought, “Did the Senate want to take action on me?”, “Did I accidentally offend a certain senator?” etc. Wait, it may eventually turn into escape or even resistance.
"A few days ago, we banned the tooth shop and arrested the leaders of the attack on the Haiyang Guild Hall. Director Lin and Bureau Mu both told me some situations: Chaoshan businessmen in the city are now arrogant. In dealing with Guangfu and Hakka There is a lot of bullying in the transactions of merchants. Obviously, Chaoshan merchants will misunderstand and think that we are going to fight against each other as we did in the past. So my opinion is that I want to explain the laws of the Senate to the natives. The best way is to print a batch of pamphlets similar to the "Basic Law" and distribute them at low or free prices. They use the simplest and most understandable words to describe the most basic laws of the Senate. For example, any citizen under the rule of the Senate What rights, freedoms, and benefits are enjoyed, and what things cannot be violated, such as insulting others, enslaving others, illegal imprisonment, etc. There are also the conceptual role of the police and law enforcement methods, how the Senate operates as a political system, etc., so that the indigenous people can A general understanding of the differences between the Senate and the Ming Dynasty, as well as their practices, even if you don’t understand the laws, at least know what you can’t do, which plays an important role in stabilizing people’s hearts and implementing the national policies of the Senate.”
"What you said makes sense. I remember we compiled a similar pamphlet in Hainan..."
"It was compiled by our Law Club. But it's still too simple. Guangzhou is a big city and the situation is much more complicated. I think it should be revised and supplemented - if you agree, I will start working on it in the next few days."
"Okay, after you compile it, I will arrange for a large number of printing and distribution."
Liu Xiang discussed some specific details with Liang Xinhu before adjourning the meeting. Then Liu Xiang held a small meeting non-stop with Lin Baiguang, Zheng Shangjie and others to discuss the matter of convening the first general meeting of the Guangzhou Federation of Industry and Commerce.
Liu Xiang was anxious to hold the meeting, not only to find out the bottom line of Guangzhou's economic aggregate, but also to collect taxes.
At present, they have not been in the city for a long time, and everything is waiting to be done. Administrative and personnel expenses are rising. At present, the city government still has two major revenue sources: "start-up fees" and "financial rebates" to support it. As various projects are carried out one after another, recruiting local public officials and solving the financial burden as soon as possible have become Liu Xiang's top priority.
To "make wealth" by attacking various old forces in the city is a temporary solution and cannot last long.
However, taxation is a systematic project, and the efficient tax extraction mechanism in modern society depends on the modern social management system and sufficient statistical data. Some people comment that the origin of modern statistics was the government's desire to extract financial resources.
But now, what Ming Dynasty left to them was only some vague and confusing statistical data. The statistical projects were not scientific, and the data contained many errors, so much so that Liu Xiang did not dare to use it as a tax basis.
As for Guangzhou’s original taxation system, it was mainly agricultural tax. Originally, as a commercial city in Guangzhou, commercial tax should be the main source of revenue, but whether it is tax types, tax rates or collection methods, it is very backward. The burden is even more uneven. Generally speaking, the government's collection and management of commercial taxes is very poor, tax types are changed in a chaotic manner, and tax rates are arbitrary. Excessive levies and extortionate taxes made the people resentful and made business travel impossible. Private individuals benefited, but the public gained little. The only way to really get a lot of revenue is from sea trade tariffs.
Now if Liu Xiang wants to search for local financial resources as soon as possible, he must restore taxation as soon as possible. Industrial and commercial registration is the first step. By issuing business licenses, they now have a rough idea of how many industrial and commercial households there are in Guangzhou. Through their registered industries, business projects, employees and store sizes, they have a preliminary grasp of the scale of industrial and commercial operations.
But this alone is not enough to establish modern taxation, because these data are only raw data and have not been aggregated and organized. What's more, these industrial and commercial households do not have accounting systems that meet modern accounting standards. Considering the Senate's own hardware level and personnel quality, it is impossible to adopt a too modern collection model. Therefore, Liu Xiang discussed with Chen Ce from the Finance and Taxation Department and decided to walk on two legs.
One leg focuses on rectifying import and export tariffs with relatively clear items and introducing the tax system of the Senate. Tariffs constitute the bulk of Guangzhou's commercial taxes, and if they are rectified and standardized, the benefits will be huge. And it doesn’t require spending too much manpower and time.
The other leg is to make use of the existing guild system of various industries - almost all larger industries in Guangzhou have "official offices", which are actually guilds. Taxes were apportioned through guilds. This makes collection and management simpler. In particular, there is no need for a large number of tax collectors. Although it has major side effects, it is a method that can quickly collect taxes under the current circumstances.
"In fact, there are many small tax sources that we can explore. For example, deed taxes, stamp taxes, etc." (To be continued.).
