Chapter 23 tax

The Kuomintang pinned its hope of establishing a management system suitable for modern cities in Shanghai on the reform of the police system, trying to emulate the best law enforcement agencies in the world; the Communist Party copied the wisdom of mass movements in rural work in cities. The paths and ideas are very different.However, the old and new regimes had different results in the transformation of society in different periods in Shanghai. The most fundamental difference was that the Communist Party had fully restored the hematopoietic function of Shanghai, the largest city in the Far East, while the Kuomintang was caught in a nightmarish opium business.

After the liberation of Shanghai, the new regime began to look for new tax sources.In its unified budget (including revenues of all levels of government), the proportion of customs duties, salt taxes, and agricultural taxes decreased significantly during the period 1949-1953.Correspondingly, the "profits of state-owned enterprises" and "industrial and commercial taxes" have grown steadily, becoming the two most important parts of government revenue.The opening of new tax channels has increased government revenues and enabled the government to invest in new construction projects.

Shanghai bears the largest part of these two new taxation tasks.Although Shanghai began to hand over huge amounts of funds to the central government since October 1949, the CPC Central Committee's expectations for Shanghai continued unabated. In February 1950, after the National Finance and Economics Conference was held in Beijing, the Central Finance Commission assigned Shanghai the task of collecting 500 billion yuan in public bonds and 500 billion in taxes each within March. Because the taxation task is very important in Shanghai, the power needs to be given to a person with executive ability and sufficient professional knowledge. Gu Zhun, who was an intern in the accounting industry at the age of 12, is a rare candidate.At that time, Shanghai finance and taxation were separated.In addition to the Finance Bureau, there are also the Direct Tax Bureau (commercial tax) and the Excise Tax Bureau.Each of the three bureaus has a deputy director, and the director is Gu Zhun.

Chen Danchen, who was the Secretary of the Finance Bureau Office at the time, recalled, "When I first started working, I stood at the counter and issued tax invoices to people. Banquets, entertainment, and vehicles are all taxed. This is a local tax collected by the Finance Bureau. Direct tax It is about business. There are tax collection notices of these three bureaus everywhere on the street, and the directors of the notices have their signatures, and their names are in red. So Gu Zhun’s name is everywhere on the street. Later, the three bureaus were merged, Collectively referred to as the Taxation Bureau." In 1949, Gu Zhun, 34 years old, was in charge of the finance and taxation power of the largest city in the Far East as a senior cadre of the Communist Party of China. Candidate for mayor.

After grassroots power organizations such as residents' committees matured, the new regime began to gradually replace guilds with residents' committees.Tu Jiyuan recalled that Shanghai was divided into "taxation zones" according to each district.In each slice, 15 adjacent companies form a "tax payment group", five to seven groups form a "big tax payment group", and two to four large groups form a "tax payment segment".In this way, all companies are included in the new system.In this system, neighboring firms (competitors) may know each other's businesses better than in a guild-based tax system, making it more difficult to conceal assets and income.In this four-tier system, the lower three tiers are all run by businessmen themselves, rather than state officials, which means that the government does not have to bear the cost of its operation. "However, unlike guild organizations, the system as a whole is government-centered. Each tax payment piece is led by a dispatched department of the Municipal Taxation Bureau, which is responsible for business registration, tax assessment, tax audit, and tax collection. , and to coordinate and supervise lower-level sections, large groups, and small groups. Small groups, large groups, and sections have all become tools of the state taxation department, and it is inconceivable to leave the construction of residents’ committees.” Tu said.

In the early days of Liberation, the taxation method prevailing in various cities was the democratic appraisal method, which stipulated that the total tax revenue for a certain period was apportioned to each household in each industry, and then the tax amount was determined by public discussion after self-reporting by each household.However, Gu Zhun believes that this approach is not suitable for the extraordinary taxation period of "500 billion".If "democratic appraisal" is carried out in Shanghai, there are only two consequences. One is that the real tax rate is lower than the tax rate stipulated in the tax law, which will make the bourgeoisie take advantage of it; becomes "apportionment".On the other hand, since the "democratic appraisal" is dominated by the federation of industry and commerce, this kind of democratic appraisal not only allows the bourgeoisie to be taken care of in terms of tax payable, but also allows their class organizations - the federation of industry and commerce and trade associations to exercise taxation power. , will certainly result in a great deal of legal tax evasion...

"Gu Zhun's method is a set of 'specialized tax management' that is closer to the modern tax system." Chen Danchen recalled, "He believes that we should take advantage of the fact that Shanghai's national capital enterprises have complete account books, so that enterprises can 'self-report and pay the actual tax, and pay less tax. Penalties', and through the tax bureau recruited accountants from the society to form special auditors to 'check the accounts and collect taxes', in order to cooperate with the grassroots structure of the residents' committees and complete the taxation tasks."

In the Gu Zhun era of Shanghai’s finance and taxation, in March, the actual tax collection reached 580 billion, an excess of 16%.At the end of 1950, statistical reports showed that Shanghai's total tax revenue accounted for 22% of the national tax revenue.According to Gao Jianguo, the author of "The Complete Biography of Gu Zhun", interviews with veteran CCP cadres who personally experienced Shanghai's takeover, at that time the income from Shanghai accounted for a quarter to a third of the country's fiscal revenue.