Chapter 22 Chapter 6: Looking for a way out——1 The first person in tax reform

In 1989, on the occasion of the 40th anniversary of the founding of the People's Republic of China, Anhui TV Station recorded a TV feature film called "Land, People, Paradise". There is such a commentary in the film: "The implementation of large-scale contracting has freed agriculture from an anxious predicament, but it has also put agriculture at such a crossroads: where will the land go after contracting, and how to further develop productivity?" This film, which won the first prize of the National TV Literary and Art Feature Film Program Exhibition, raised problems, but did not reveal the solution to the problems.At this time, it has been more than ten years since the implementation of large-scale contracting, and the rural areas of Anhui are indeed at a new crossroads, and the entire rural areas of China are undoubtedly at such a crossroads!

People are looking forward to a second leap in rural China, and Chinese farmers are eager to laugh again.However, the deepening contradictions and new problems in the countryside make people anxious: where is the way out for the second stage of rural reform? In fact, just a year before that TV show was broadcast, in Anhui, in the research office of the Provincial Government Office, which is very close to Anhui TV, someone had already answered this question. This person is He Kaiyin, a senior agronomist who was later hailed as "the first person in China's tax and fee reform".

This is a man with a rough experience.He looks a little special, very thin, with a thin face, the most impressive thing is that he has a high nose, and a pair of eyes that seem to be caught in thinking all the time.This is an intellectual who loves to be serious, dares to tell the truth, and loves to care about national affairs.Because of this special character, in 1957, when he was still a student of Beijing Agricultural University, he was labeled as a "rightist" and sent to a youth farm in the Great Northern Wilderness, where he stayed for twenty years. .Later, the rightists corrected themselves, and 43-year-old He Kaiyin finally returned to his hometown in Tianchang County, Anhui Province.Originally, he could have lived a stable life, but the great reforms in rural China that followed once again ignited his passion. In addition, Wang Yemei, secretary of the Laian County Party Committee, is his old leader, and he is more concerned about national affairs and likes to think. Social hot issues, when Wang Yemei made the first decision in the country to set up "household production contract" in Lai'an County, he followed Wang Yemei and went to the front line of rural reform; after that, he actively supported Xiaogang Village in Fengyang County to implement Wang Yuzhao, secretary of the Chuxian County Party Committee who started the "big contract", risked his life to implement the household contract responsibility system.The "big contract" contracted by household joint production has won success throughout the country. As a hero of that reform, Wang Yuzhao became the governor of Anhui Province, and he was later transferred to the provincial government office.What can a cadre of agricultural scientific research and technology do when he goes to an administrative agency?Since then he has started research work on macro-agricultural policy.

It's a coincidence.In October 1988, the Central Rural Policy Research Office and the Rural Development Research Center of the State Council, together with several departments including the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences and the People's Daily, launched a "Theoretical Symposium on China's Ten-Year Rural Reform".At this time, Wang Yuzhao had already served as the deputy director of the Rural Policy Research Office of the Central Committee and the Rural Development Center of the State Council. Such a theoretical seminar led by his department naturally could not forget He Kaiyin, an old subordinate he admired very much.Wang Yuzhao asked his secretary Cui Chuanyi to send the call for papers directly to He Kaiyin.

He Kaiyin was very excited when he received the call for papers.So he acted nervously.He found Jin Jin and Zhu Wengen from the Rural Economic Research Office of the Provincial Academy of Social Sciences, and his wife Gu Xianxin who worked in the Crop Research Institute of the Academy of Agricultural Sciences. The four of them conducted an in-depth investigation and research. That is, since the spring of that year, there has been a surging "migrant labor wave" in China. The emergence of the "migrant labor wave" made He Kaiyin sensitively realize that farming has been unable to make ends meet, the increase in farmers' income has slowed down, and there has been negative growth, while the burden on farmers is increasing day by day, new contradictions continue to arise, and there is a lack of necessary reform measures. The accumulation of various contradictions has seriously hindered the sustainable development of China's rural economy.Also because the ten-year contract expired, farmers worried that the cultivated land would no longer be theirs, and that the land complex that had been dependent on each other for generations was gone, and they flocked to the cities to find a new way out of life, not to mention the emergence of land disputes. A large area was abandoned, and those who remained in the countryside were mostly old people, women and children, which caused a large reduction in food production, and rural work was even more stagnant.

He Kaiyin thinks that in order to find the breakthrough point for the second reform in China's rural areas, it is necessary to clarify these new contradictions that have arisen first. What are the new contradictions?Based on the results of the investigation and research by the four people, He Kaiyin believes that it can be roughly summarized as follows: 1. Contradictions between ownership, use rights and property rights of contracted cultivated land; 2. The contradiction between the price and value of agricultural products; 3. The contradiction between urban-rural dual structure and economic integration;

4. The contradiction between small production and big market, the difficulty of buying and selling grain alternately; 5. The contradiction between the slow growth of farmers' income and the increasing burden; 6. The contradiction between the closed community structure and the great openness and circulation; 7. The contradiction between rural industrial structure and employment structure; 8. The contradiction between relative poverty and common prosperity; 9. The contradiction between the low level of productivity and the incompatibility of the level of science and technology; 10. The contradiction between the construction of material civilization and spiritual civilization is not synchronized.

Of course, some other contradictions can also be teased out and their specific contents listed.However, he believes that, in the final analysis, it is an inevitable phenomenon caused by the inevitable friction and collision during the transition from the old system of planned economy to the new system of market economy. To resolve the above contradictions, it is necessary to come up with various corresponding reform measures. At that time, due to the influence of Xiaogang Village's large contract spirit, the academic circles in Anhui Province were still quite active.During his research, He Kaiyin found that there are a group of leading cadres who want to do things, are able to do things, and dare to do things in the party committees and governments at all levels.

During that time, He Kaiyin became extremely excited.After carefully analyzing the situation of several other comrades who went to investigate and study, He Kaiyin felt that the most urgent problem to be solved at present is the permanent contract of land, giving farmers a long-term right to use the land; reduce the burden on farmers. When he put all of his thoughtful thoughts into words, an insightful thesis has been completed.He named it: "What is the way out for the second step of rural reform?" ", and then sent to Beijing. Because of this article, He Kaiyin embarked on the road of research on the second rural reform. Although the road was full of thorns and mud, he never looked back.

The paper written by He Kaiyin attracted the attention of high-level officials in the central political research work, and was rated as an excellent paper in that call for papers.However, he did not expect that soon, some extreme "left" thoughts would rise again, and a wave of thoughts denying agricultural contracting was surging in various places. He was surprised to find this.He is trying his best to study the second step of reform in the countryside, and some people even want to wipe out the results of the first reform! He Kaiyin's heart is as heavy as lead.He thought that our country is a large agricultural country, with a population of one billion, there are 800 million farmers. The state of agriculture has always been of great importance to the development of our economy and the consolidation of our political power. Unity and reliance on the vast number of farmers should be the starting point of our party's policies. , but for a long time, we have owed too much to farmers; although solving the problems of agriculture, rural areas and farmers involves China's deep-seated political and economic system problems, it is a systematic project, and it is impossible to expect it to be accomplished at one stroke. However, re-examining China's agriculture, The problem of rural areas and peasants has reached the point of imminent urgency!

A desire to serve the motherland and dedicate himself to agriculture made his blood rush. So he sat down and wrote a clear-cut article aimed at negating the "big contract" trend of thought: "Proposal to implement permanent contracting of cultivated land and give farmers long-term use rights." He suggested: "We should take a big action in time, which is to carry out a reform of the ownership of cultivated land, and all land will be owned by the state. The state owns the land, as it should be. At the same time, the ownership of cultivated land (field rights) and use Completely separate land rights (land surface rights) and implement a permanent contract system, that is, sign a contract on the basis of existing contracted land, contract it to farmers for farming for a long time, and make appropriate adjustments to scattered land, so that the contracted land of each household is concentrated and contiguous Moreover, the right to use can be inherited or transferred, but the transfer is by no means a sale. It is just to recover the farmland infrastructure investment and the corresponding contracted rights and interests of the land under the verification of the land management department. If the cultivated land is still owned by the collective, let the farmers turn it over It is illegal to raise agricultural taxes; since the cultivated land belongs to the state, and farmers contract the cultivated land from the state, it is only natural for farmers to pay grain to the state.” He believes that the specific method of agricultural tax collection should be: "Based on the average annual arable land yield per mu in the past three to five years, 10% of the public grain will remain unchanged until the end of this century, and the increase in production will not increase taxes, so as to stimulate farmers to increase production. In the future, we will sign a contract every ten years. Considering that the subsidized wages of rural cadres and various allowances are extremely irregular, farmers are generally disgusted and shout that the burden is too heavy. We might as well combine the various allowances and allowances of rural cadres with the public grain collection , an additional 5% is levied, that is, 15% of the yield per mu of cultivated land is expropriated, and it is used as public grain and retention. The original agricultural tax and various retention burdens are gone. One-third of the public grain will be returned to the township treasury for unified use according to the purchase price. From then on, no one has the right to apportion or collect a penny from the farmers. in the status of a legal person.” He believes that if these two steps are taken well, the whole game will come to life.In doing so, not only will the rural economy be activated, but the situation that farmers are overwhelmed will also be fundamentally curbed. He put forward the tax and fee reform plan of "agricultural tax collection", which was based on a lot of investigation and research.He even spent a lot of time carefully studying the three most important tax reforms in Chinese history. The "Two Tax Law" implemented in the Tang Dynasty can be said to be the first of its kind in China's tax reform. The "Two Taxes Law" merged the confusing and complicated tax categories into two types: household tax and local tax.All charges were changed to regular taxes and merged into the two taxes.The collection time was concentrated, and it was divided into two times a year, summer and autumn. This changed the situation of "the name of the department is hundreds of thousands" and the situation of the common people "transferring every ten days and months without rest". The central government unified the power to collect taxes and fees. It is expressly stipulated that officials shall not "collect a sum of money in addition to the two taxes", otherwise, they will also be charged with corruption and breaking the law. The "One Whip Law" in the Ming Dynasty was another major tax reform after the "Two Tax Laws" in the Tang Dynasty.It is a kind of land tax that combines corvee, land tax and various miscellaneous fees into one type of land tax. It takes acres of land as the object, and collects all the land taxes collected in taels of silver. Moreover, the local "li chief" and "grain chief" are no longer For collection management, the local officials will directly collect and pay to the national treasury; at the same time, they will order that no other fees will be collected, and farmers will be allowed to pay taxes according to regulations and refuse to pay miscellaneous payments other than the listed tax items.This "one-whip law" simplifies complexity and integrates taxes and fees, which effectively limits the local government's ultra vires charges and local officials' corruption, stabilizes the development of social productivity, and increases the revenue of the central government. In the early Qing Dynasty, Emperor Yongzheng adopted the tax and fee reform of "returning fire consumption to the public", and changed the secret collection to the explicit collection. Local bureaucrats are not allowed to distribute privately; the fire consumption silver originally collected by the local government will be turned over to the national treasury, and then a part of the silver will be allocated by the central government as a "subsidy" for local officials' honesty and local administrative expenses. And inspectors, severely crack down on corruption, and crack down on the arbitrary apportionment of local officials. The reform of "returning fire consumption to the public" has achieved remarkable results. Not only has the consumption income that has always been controlled by the local government been firmly controlled in the hands of the central finance, the administration of officials has been rectified, the burden on the common people has been reduced, and the national inventory of silver has been reduced from 800 yuan in the last years of Kangxi. Ten thousand taels increased to more than sixty million taels. Throughout China's thousands of years of history, it is only natural for farmers to farm land and pay the emperor grain.After liberation, land reform was carried out in rural China, and cultivated land was distributed to farmers for farming without compensation, but the "imperial grain" still had to be paid.For quite a long time after the founding of the People's Republic of China, the main source of national fiscal revenue was public grain tax in kind. He Kaiyin believes that by restoring the agricultural tax in kind, the country can use free public grain to supply urban residents with affordable food, remove the heavy burden of financial subsidies, and at the same time completely open the grain market, so that farmers can get more benefits from the development of commodity grain production. He simplifies the specific method he envisioned into one sentence: unify and hand over to the state and the collective, and the rest is his own. In this way, he organically connected the second stage of reform in the countryside with the first stage of reform, and used the same sentence.He even called the second step of reform "the second big contract".He believes that this is precisely the further improvement and development of the "big contract" of that year. In order to further illustrate the feasibility of his idea, He Kaiyin did some calculations. "Take Anhui as an example. The annual grain output in Anhui Province is about 50 billion catties. If the land rent is charged at 15 percent of the total output, 7.5 billion catties of rented grain can be obtained free of charge. Now, the annual ordering task is 70 billion catties. 100 million catties, and the proposed flattening part is also 7.5 billion catties; if calculated according to the area of ​​cultivated land, the province's 65 million mu of cultivated land, except for the temporary exemption of land tax in poverty-stricken areas, can have at least 50 million mu Land rent is collected from cultivated land, and the province’s average income is 150 catties per mu (there may be differences in different regions in the north and south according to specific conditions), and 50 million mu of cultivated land can also receive 7.5 billion catties of land rent and grain, ensuring normal needs. In doing so, not only can the provincial finance be relieved of the heavy burden of 12.3 billion yuan in food subsidies every year, but also the non-agricultural population can be supplied with free land tax and grain at the current parity price, and a little income can be obtained. It will be of great benefit to the country.” "Looking at the whole country again. The country's total annual grain output is about 800 billion catties, and the country can get 120 billion catties of public grain if it is charged at 15% of the total output; 100 million mu of arable land, excluding the 400 million mu in poverty-stricken areas, there are still 1.2 billion mu of arable land, with an average harvest of 100 catties of public grain per mu (different provinces and regions), and 1,200 public grains can also be collected At present, the state orders only 100 billion jin per year, and it is not easy to collect. If the leasing system is implemented, the state can control 120 billion jin of grain every year, and all of them are obtained free of charge, which can be used to supply the whole country The non-agricultural population is always much better off than the current 100 billion catties." He Kaiyin settled the big accounts of Anhui Province and the whole country, and later calculated a few small accounts for the farmers. "Then, will farmers' payment of free in-kind land taxes to the state reduce their income? The conclusion is just the opposite. Taking Tianchang County, which has the largest per capita grain output and the heaviest ordering tasks in Anhui Province, as an example, the per capita arable land of farmers in Tianchang County is 1.93 mu, with a grain production of 2,500 catties, and the per capita order task of 610 catties, calculated on the basis of 2 cents and 2 cents per catty of rice after the price increase, you can get 135 yuan and 40 cents; Pay 200 catties of land rent and grain to the state free of charge, and the average person should pay 386 catties of grain free of charge. The remaining 224 catties of the originally ordered 610 catties can be sold at a negotiable price. Calculated at 50 cents per catty (when the market price was high, it reached 70 cents per catty), you can sell it for 123 yuan and 2 cents, which is 12 yuan and 2 cents less than the original order price. Of the thousand catties of grain, minus the six hundred and ten catties, each farmer still has one thousand eight hundred and ninety catties in his hand, and at least one thousand catties can be sold at a bargaining price for five hundred and fifty yuan; Surplus grain must be sold to the grain department at a limit price of 3.5 cents per catty, and they can only get 350 yuan. Farmers can earn 200 yuan more by selling surplus grain, making up for the 12 yuan and 2 cents that they ordered. Each rural population can gain a net increase of 187 yuan and 78 cents from the bargained grain. That is to say, the grain purchase order will be cancelled, the grain market and price will be completely liberalized, and each rural population in Tianchang County will pay the state land tax free of charge. After harvesting the grain, the surplus grain can enter the market freely, and the farmers have benefited a lot.” Of course, Tianchang County produces a lot of grain, which is a prominent example. Is it also profitable for farmers in other counties? He Kaiyin took Dingyuan County as an example and did some calculations. Even a backward area like Dingyuan County can earn an extra 35 million yuan. These are still clear accounts, they are obvious, and they can all be calculated with numbers.He pointed out that especially after the implementation of the "Tithe Tax" law, no additional taxes and fees are charged to farmers, and the long-term use rights of cultivated land are clarified, farmers will naturally increase their enthusiasm for growing grain and be willing to increase investment, and then go to Efforts should be made to increase the productivity and commodity rate of the land. The more grain farmers harvest, the greater the benefits. As for the advantages of implementing the tax reform and the permanent contract system of cultivated land, He Kaiyin summed up twelve points at once.Such as: "The state has taken back the ownership of the cultivated land, and the right to use it has been owned by the contracted farmers for a long time. No unit or individual can occupy the cultivated land indiscriminately. If someone requisitions the cultivated land, in addition to obtaining approval, the livelihood of the contractor of the land must be resolved. At the same time, they have to pay the cultivated land occupation tax equivalent to the public grain payment for the land every year. In this way, the reduction of cultivated land can be effectively controlled; Pay the prescribed amount of public grain, so that farmers will cherish the cultivated land very much." For example: "If you pay enough to the state collective, the rest is your own. No one has the right to levy a penny from the farmers, which can effectively stop the land. The unhealthy practice of apportioning arbitrary fees reduces the burden on farmers; rural cadres no longer ask farmers for money, wage subsidies and withdrawals and other expenses are returned to the township government from the public grain, and the task of cadres is to serve farmers wholeheartedly. Serving, making contributions, and not asking farmers for anything will naturally greatly improve the relationship between cadres and the masses, and enhance the prestige of the party and the government.” Of course, this kind of reform involves a wide range of areas and will inevitably touch the interests of some departments. He Kaiyin wrote at the end of the article: "This requires the State Council to coordinate and adjust the interests of all parties." Or several provinces choose different types of counties as pilots for exploration.” After the article was finished, He Kaiyin decided to still send it to the Central Rural Policy Research Office and the Rural Development Research Center of the State Council.Because it is the highest research department of the central government and the country on rural work, and Wang Yuzhao, who also holds important positions in these two departments, is the old leader he is most familiar with. He first made a phone call to Beijing. If you don't fight, it's enough. This fight, he was almost taken aback.It turns out that after 1989, the Central Rural Policy Research Office was abolished; the Rural Development Research Center of the State Council was also downgraded to a subordinate department of the Ministry of Agriculture.That is to say, there are no more high-level, high-level research institutions for rural policy and rural development that belong to the Party Central Committee and the State Council! Wang Yuzhao also told him on the phone: Someone in Beijing is organizing an article and is going to criticize the thesis he applied for the award last time. He Kaiyin was even more surprised. This article not only fully expounds and demonstrates some of the points of view in the last paper, but also undoubtedly goes further in its bold assumptions.Since someone has already organized and criticized that paper, can this article be sent again? If so, where should I send it? The Central Rural Policy Research Office is gone, and the Rural Development Research Center directly under the State Council has also been placed in the Ministry of Agriculture, but how can the many assumptions involved in his article be solved by the Ministry of Agriculture? He Kaiyin was in trouble for a while.