amaotonovel Chapter 362 Commercial Tax Invoices of Ningyang County, Ming Dynasty
Chapter 362 Commercial Tax Invoices of Ningyang County, Ming Dynasty
As he checked page after page of the household registration records, Shen Hao felt like a ruthless accounting machine.
As he was looking through the papers, Shen Hao suddenly stopped turning the pages, and his eyes involuntarily drifted to the draft paper on the table.
7,693 strings and 158 cash.
This is the commercial tax from Ningyang County in the third year of the Hongwu reign (1380).
From a purely numerical perspective, 7,600 strings of cash in commercial tax doesn't seem like much.
The problem is that this is Ningyang County, not the capital, nor one of the wealthier counties in Jiangnan.
Besides, a commercial tax of over 7,600 strings of cash would be among the top in the Jiangnan region, wouldn't it?
Moreover, this is only a large part of the figures that have been checked. If the entire ledger is checked, how much will the figures become?
So, is it really Yang... is it that the Prince Consort is more capable of governing the local area than the officials in other places, or is it that the county magistrate and registrar of Ningyang County are acting recklessly behind the Prince Consort's back?
Shen Hao's heart tightened, and he simply flipped back to the first page of the ledger he had already read more than half of, and began to check it page by page.
"The Jiazi brick kiln in Ningyang County had zero tax in January, 100 wen in February, 100 wen in March... and 1 guan in September..."
The tax records for the brick kilns stopped abruptly in October, because it is now November, and it is not yet time to calculate the tax figures.
After pondering for a while, Shen Hao simply put down the commercial tax book in his hand and went to the shelf next to him to start looking for the brick kiln's account books.
"Brick Kiln, Jia Character, January".
"..."
"Brick Kiln, A-character, October".
After moving all the brick kiln's ledgers for the past ten months back to the table, Shen Hao began to check all the data of the brick kiln, from the labor data to the brick firing data, and then to the sales data line by line, carefully checking each and every one of them.
All the data for the Class A brick kiln are correct.
The only problem is that every month, the ledgers of the Class A brick kiln have a piece of paper pasted on the back, which says something like "Bookshelf, Floor, Location, Box Number".
Shen Hao searched the room where the household affairs department kept the account books several times according to the location written on it. When he finally found the corresponding box, he was surprised to find that it contained a series of receipts.
Shen Hao picked up a receipt at random and saw that the top line of the receipt read "Commercial Tax Invoice of Ningyang County, Ming Dynasty". Below it was a table. The rightmost line had the words "Ningyang County Jiazi Brick Kiln" printed on it. The upper half of the leftmost line had the words "Date" printed on it, and the lower half had the words "Second Month, Ninth Day, Third Year of Hongwu, Ming Dynasty" handwritten on it.
Moving to the left, the top part has the words "Transaction Amount" printed on it, and the bottom part has the words "Thirty Wen" handwritten on it. Further down, there is "30 Wen" written in Hongwu abacus. The top part of the leftmost line has the words "Signature" printed on it, and the bottom part has "Liu Da of Fushan Society, Ningyang County" written on it. There is also a handprint above the words "Liu Da".
At the very bottom of the form, a line of lowercase text reads "Forgery Prohibited".
The more he looked, the more curious he became. So Shen Hao simply dug out all the "invoices" from February and checked them. But after checking them, he was surprised to find that the total transaction amount of all the invoices was exactly six thousand cash. According to the tax rate of one-thirty percent, it was exactly two hundred cash, which matched the figures on the commercial tax ledger perfectly.
But then Shen Hao thought about it again and felt that something was not right.
Isn't this thing easy to be copied?
Although it says "Forgery Prohibited," it's ultimately just a printed and handwritten item, so it shouldn't be too difficult to counterfeit, right?
Another issue is that if the merchant doesn't issue an invoice to the consumer, and the consumer doesn't ask the merchant for an invoice, can the merchant simply say that there was no transaction and thus avoid paying commercial taxes?
Even if brick kilns can be considered government-controlled and free from these irregularities, what about shops? And how do ordinary people issue invoices when they sell grain or other small items?
The more he thought about it, the more his head ached. So Shen Hao simply checked the commercial tax ledgers roughly. After confirming that there were no discrepancies, he went to find Wu Yanhu, the county magistrate of Ningyang County, and Chen Mo, the registrar.
"bill?"
Wu Yanhu was slightly taken aback at first, then smiled and said, "The invoice is a rule set by the Prince Consort. Every commoner must ask for an invoice when buying things at a shop. If the shop refuses to issue one, they can report it to the county government. At best, they will be fined; at worst, they will be arrested and the shop will be shut down."
"For example, this tea set that I use has an invoice proving that I bought it with my own money, so I can bring it to the county office to use. If there were no invoice, the Prince Consort would send someone to cause trouble for me."
"At the end of the year, we can easily calculate their tax amount by directly checking with the shop how many invoices they withdrew from the tax department, how many invoices they actually issued, and how many invoices were left over."
Shen Hao stared blankly at Wu Yanhu and asked, "What if someone doesn't want an invoice? What about small transactions like ordinary people buying and selling things, where each transaction costs only a few coins? What if someone doesn't buy or sell in a shop? And what if someone forges..."
Wu Yanhu pushed the brewed tea in front of Shen Hao and said with a smile, "Don't you want an invoice? If you report a shop for not issuing invoices, the shop will be fined 20 guan, and the common people will receive a reward of 10 guan. If the official is a commoner, he would be happy if the shop didn't issue invoices. But if the official is a shop owner, he would be eager to stuff the invoices into the customer's hands."
"As for the buying and selling of goods among ordinary people, each transaction only involves a few coins. No one cares about such transactions, and no one goes to collect commercial taxes from them."
"As for forgery..."
Wu Yanhu smiled and said, "Did Imperial Censor Shen notice the red marks on each invoice just now?"
Shen Hao nodded, and Wu Yanhu continued, "They are all covered with seals across the seams. The red marks on every hundred invoices together form a complete official seal."
“The shop always makes three copies of the invoices: one for the customer, one for the shopkeeper, and one for the shopkeeper’s household registration office. It’s not difficult to verify them; you just have to follow the clues.”
"In that case, let alone whether anyone could forge the seal across the seam, even if they could, it would be easily discovered. Forging an official seal is a capital offense punishable by confiscation of property and extermination of the entire clan. Surely no one would take that risk?"
Shen Hao nodded again, then frowned slightly and asked, "What if the people throw away the invoice themselves and falsely accuse the shop owner of not issuing them an invoice?"
Wu Yanhu smiled again. "The invoices kept by the shop have the customer's name and address, as well as their fingerprint. Moreover, every invoice issued must be in triplicate. The people say they don't have them, but the shop and the household registration office do. So you can't say the shop didn't issue an invoice."
Seeing Shen Hao's hesitant expression, Wu Yanhu asked with a smile, "Is Imperial Censor Shen thinking that this is too troublesome?"