Chapter 30 Chapter 7: Great Responsibility from Heaven—4 Unforgettable Fuyang Conference

Located in the Fuyang area bordering Henan Province in the northwest of Anhui Province, it is a famous grain-producing area in my country, and it is also China's first rural reform experimental area registered by the State Council.This experimental area was established as early as 1986 by Duan Yingbi, Zhou Qiren, Chen Xiwen, Du Ying, Lu Mai and other famous agricultural experts under the personal leadership of Du Runsheng, director of the Rural Development Research Center of the State Council at that time.Xinxing Township of Guoyang County, which took the lead in reforming the land tax system this time, and Taihe County, which can be called the first county in rural taxation reform, are both located in this area. Therefore, from April 21 to 20, 1995, On the 5th, the National Rural Grassroots Tax and Fee System Reform Experience Seminar was held in Fuyang, which is undoubtedly a matter of course.

The meeting was chaired by Du Ying, Director of the Office of the National Rural Reform Pilot Area. Experts and scholars from the National Economic System Reform Commission, the Special Economic Zone Office of the State Council, the Ministry of Agriculture, the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Internal Trade and the Ministry of Food and other ministries and commissions, Fuyang Experimental Area of ​​Anhui Province, Huaihua Experimental Area of ​​Hunan Province, Meitan Experimental Area of ​​Guizhou Province and Hebei Province A total of more than 80 representatives from seven provinces and related counties including Zhengding County in Henan Province and Chengyan County in Henan Province attended the meeting.Everyone inspected the pilot project in Taihe County on the spot, and also exchanged views on the specific practices and results of the pilot projects in various places. Of course, they also made candid and in-depth discussions on the specific problems that still exist and how to further improve the pilot work.

Since all regions determine specific practices according to their own actual conditions, the reform measures are not the same.It looks dazzling, but in fact, everything remains the same, or the few words that He Kaiyin summed up earlier, which is a model of "coordinated tax and fee, tax collection, financial settlement, and tax and fee diversion". In short, under the premise that the principles and goals are generally the same, all localities have made many beneficial attempts in the reform of the rural grassroots tax and fee system.Delegates at the meeting recognized that among the many pilot projects, the two pilot projects in Taihe County, Anhui Province and Zhengding County, Hebei Province are the most representative.

The participating experts gave a very high evaluation to this reform, thinking that it is another breakthrough to the old system, it is feasible in practice, the direction is right, and the effect is obvious. At the meeting, the speech of Liu Fuyuan, deputy director of the Political Research Office of the Special Economic Zone Office of the State Council, was particularly eye-catching.He said that Director Zhu Lin asked me to come to this meeting. Of course, I am also very interested and will come right away.After listening to the introductions of comrades, I have a general feeling about this reform, that is, the reform of the pilot units has achieved basic success, which is of great significance.Vice Premier Jiang Chunyun said that this reform has not only economic but also political significance, which shows that this issue is indeed a matter of great concern.

He said, "I think the significance of this reform is not simply to solve the problem of farmers' burden. Banner, the target of reform is the government, which is the system of political and social integration since our communalization. The central government and governments at all levels take the place of peasants' decision-making, and completely block the four links of production, circulation, consumption, and distribution of peasants. The income of our farmers is too low, the rural economy is simplistic, and the development of agriculture is seriously lagging behind. The reform has broken through the system of political and social integration, and returned some autonomy to the community and farmers. However, that kind of reform is not thorough, at least, The problem of circulation and distribution has not been fundamentally resolved. Today, governments at all levels are discussing how to solve the burden on farmers, how to eliminate exorbitant taxes, and how to change the image of cadres who want money, food, and life; which tax is reasonable and which tax is unreasonable; how much is reasonable and what is unreasonable; the State Council’s teleconference has also explicitly canceled 31 fees. In fact, in the distribution relationship With no clear background, which one is reasonable and which one is unreasonable, in the end it is unclear, and the top and bottom are not clear. For example, family planning expenses, militia training expenses, these are all administrative expenses, and they are implemented to implement national policies. The required expenses have nothing to do with agricultural production. In fact, this should be paid by the finance, but now, it is all mixed in the "three mentions and five regulations" and farmers should bear it.

"Only by solving the apportionment problem at the most fundamental level, and truly achieving: clear rent, regular taxation, and fee reduction, can we call 'attention' to the distribution issue in rural areas. In the final analysis, there is only a rent relationship between farmers and communities. Farmers The relationship with the state is only adjusted by taxes, farmers pay rent and taxes, and any other expenses have nothing to do with farmers!" In the end, he made a generous statement: "Since we are so determined to carry out this reform, we should have perseverance. After implementing this method, we will not make any openings, even if the "red head document" of the State Council is suppressed, and the test Districts should also be topped up. For example, for education to meet standards and so on, if you have this money in the provident fund, you can take it. If you don’t have this money, you must never ask the peasants again! If we have fulfilled this task of reform, we should be given the power to do anything that would increase the burden on the peasants, and we must dare to stand up to it, even if the peasants agree, don’t listen to it!”

Liu Fuyuan's speech won warm applause from representatives from all over the country. The speech of Li Qiuhong, the Agricultural Finance Department of the Ministry of Finance, caused an uproar at the meeting and was strongly opposed by everyone, which made the atmosphere of the meeting very tense. Li Qiuhong's opening remarks were very modest. He said: "Participating in this meeting is a good learning opportunity for me. We didn't think too much about the reform of the tax system in the past." Next, his speech was not so much a "good study" as a special report on this reform.

"What is the goal of this tax reform?" He asked first, and then answered by himself. "I'm afraid there are several main purposes." After summing up four "goals" that are neither innovative nor scientific, he said in the tone of the leading authority: "I don't know that the various experimental areas are designing this reform. When considering whether to take all four goals into consideration, or only certain goals. I want to talk about several aspects." So an unmodest speech began. As soon as the words fell, the representatives of Guizhou and Hunan pilots whispered to each other, obviously feeling that this agricultural and financial cadre squatting in a large state agency is too high and pampered.What is "unbearable"?It is precisely because the farmers have been overwhelmed and the relationship between the cadres and the masses has seriously deteriorated that this tax and fee reform was "forced".

In the next speech, Li Qiuhong completely negated the basic experience of reform pilots in various places.He said: "In China's rural areas, whether it is for each household, or for each village or township, the income gap among them is very large. As a burden policy, an important basis should be economic income, and It’s not other things, but the policy design of levying one hundred catties of grain per mu of arable land in Taihe County, Anhui Province is obviously not consistent with the distribution principle of more income and less income.” His view made many people startled. It should be said that what Li Qiuhong said was a theoretical issue.From the point of view of the socialist distribution principle, we should not ignore differences and make equal sharing, but should be meticulous, and the burden should be determined according to the actual economic income of each household in each township and village.However, there is no absolute truth in the world, and likewise, there can be no absolute fairness.When Li Qiuhong used this point of view to evaluate the experience of rural tax and fee reform represented by Taihe County in Anhui Province, he first contradicted the goal of "reducing tax collection costs" among the four "reform goals" he summed up. .According to him, there are 353,459 peasant households in Taihe County. If taxes and fees are to be levied according to the actual economic income of each household, how many people should the county party committee and county government organize to enter the village? In order to clarify the real income of each household; how many talents need to be mobilized to implement this voluminous and ambitious tax collection work?Isn't it a fool's dream!

Everyone began to pay attention to the speech of the young director of the Agricultural Finance Department of the Ministry of Finance. Then, Li Qiuhong talked about the special product tax for the same reason. "As for the tax on agricultural specialties, the tax department's attitude is very clear, and it must not be shared equally. This is the purpose of designing this tax to protect food production and adjust the income of different crops within the planting industry. If it is apportioned equally, then the meaning of collection is also There will be none, and the goal of formulating this policy will not be achieved.”

What Li Qiuhong said here, just as Vice Premier Jiang Chunyun pointed out when he criticized Li Yanling, Vice Minister of Finance during his inspection in Fuyang, is still a theoretical thing and has no practicality. Many representatives from the grassroots could not sit still when they heard this.Some even stood up unbearably, and began to criticize them severely.The atmosphere at the venue suddenly took a turn for the worse. Everyone knows that in the "Agricultural Tax Regulations" promulgated in 1958, there was a special agricultural product tax, but it was only included in the agricultural tax at that time, and the scope of taxation also refers to the mountains or water surfaces other than farmland. , Forest trees, mountain delicacies and aquatic products and other special products are levied.Due to the high income, it is also appropriate to levy a separate agricultural special product tax, but once the special product tax is levied, the agricultural tax will no longer be levied.As for the farmland for growing grain, there has never been a special product tax.According to actual calculations, it is only in recent years that the tax on special products on farmland has been collected. The problem now is that this unrealistic calculation and collection policy has turned this agricultural specialty tax into a "field tax" and a "poll tax". A "legitimate" burden on farmers.In particular, the special product tax on taxable farmland itself has already become a serious hindrance to the promotion of agricultural industrialization in China's vast rural areas; Roadblock! Representatives from all over the country not only strongly demanded the abolition of the special product tax on farmland, but also pointed out that the defects of the existing agricultural tax policy also increased the burden on farmers.Because the "Agricultural Tax Regulations" was promulgated in 1958, and now 30 to 40 years have passed, there have been a large number of places that are seriously out of touch with the actual situation in the collection of agricultural taxes, such as tax-calculated regular production and actual regular production, and nominal tax rates. There are thousands of differences between actual tax rate, taxable land area and actual land area, etc., resulting in "high production and low tax" or "low production and high tax", high nominal tax rate and low actual tax rate or low nominal tax rate and high actual tax rate, and taxation without taxation There are obvious unreasonable phenomena such as land or land without tax.Coupled with the abnormal lightness and heavy weight of the state's ordering of grain, this actually means that the grain-producing areas are paying taxes for the non-grain-producing areas, and the poor areas are paying taxes for the rich areas. All these drawbacks have seriously dampened farmers' enthusiasm for farming! As an official of the Department of Agriculture and Finance of the Ministry of Finance, who is in charge of this work, instead of trying to solve these problems in agricultural fiscal and taxation policies, he is picky about these rare reform experiments at the local level, and lacks the minimum enthusiasm , It is naturally conceivable that such a seminar will cause public outrage. According to the recollections of the comrades who participated in the meeting, Li Qiuhong said the most straightforward statement, which also left the deepest impression on everyone. ;Farmers report that taxes and fees are mixed together. Therefore, we advocate that taxes and fees should be resolutely separated in business work!" What he said seemed to be credible, but it attracted the most violent criticism from everyone, which made the meeting heated up. Because, the first thing that causes this kind of unclear taxes and fees is the national finance. The rural school-running system based on townships and townships that started in 1985 is the biggest and most important reason for the burden on Chinese farmers.In China's vast rural areas with a population of 900 million, the cost of compulsory education is paid by farmers themselves.The money that should be paid by the government is not paid, and even family planning, militia training, special care work, rural roads and other expenses that should be paid by the government have forced rural cadres to go door by door and forcibly extort from farmers.Now, instead of accepting the favor from the lower levels, the agricultural and financial officials from the capital city beat them back and blamed others.This really pissed off grassroots representatives. "Since the policy stipulates that the tax on farmland special products should be 'according to the actual situation'," a representative from the front line of reform pilots held on to the issue of "special product tax" and raised a rhetorical question. "Should we seek truth from facts? If there is, then it will be accepted; if there is no, then it will not be accepted; if there are many, then how much will be collected. But why the financial indicators are lowered every year, and tasks are assigned. This is not clear. Do you want to teach people to cheat? Rural cadres 'received for others', ruined their reputation and image, and in turn said that the policy will not be implemented at the bottom. What is the reason for this?!" A representative from Guoyang County, Anhui Province came to speak out.He said that in order to fully implement the special product tax policy of "according to the actual calculation", Guoyang County conducted a pilot project in Genghuang Township. The township government organized 19 people from the Finance Office and the Economic Management Station to enter the village and enter the household. , Follow the whole process of the production and sales of this rural special product in strict accordance with the regulations.It took more than two months to carefully calculate the cost and income, and finally collected more than 40,000 yuan of farmland special product tax.However, the supplies, wages, and meal subsidies for these people who went to the countryside added up to more than 40,000 yuan.As a result, the amount of tax collected is basically offset by the cost of collection.That is to say, it is almost impossible to collect taxes according to the current system and methods. The story of Genghuang Township is almost absurd, but this kind of experiment has fully exposed the problems of today's tax system that are unrealistic. Unexpectedly, the representative of Guoyang County's words fell silent, so Li Qiuhong took the words and argued vigorously. Zou Xinhua, deputy director of the Taihe County Agricultural and Economic Commission, has been calmly paying attention to Li Qiuhong's speech, and patiently listening to the official from the Ministry of Finance's accusations against the pilot project in Taihe County.Because what the other party said was "Taihe", as a representative of the pilot project in Taihe County, it was naturally inconvenient for him to refute immediately, at least he had to show the tolerance and generosity of the Taihe people.However, the example given by the representative of Guoyang County already explained the problem in that way, but the other party still used strong words to overwhelm others, and he couldn't hold back anymore. Zou Xinhua excitedly pointed at Li Qiuhong, and just missed poking his finger on the other's nose.Angrily said: "You just don't look at the actual situation, just sit in the office building and think about it. The facts are in front of you today, and you still refuse to admit it!" He spoke too impulsively, his voice became hoarse, and his outstretched fingers were trembling up and down. Then there were angry reprimands from all over the venue. People have already seen very clearly that Wenwen Jingjing, and even the bookish Li Qiuhong, what he insisted on at the meeting was actually the opinion of the Ministry of Finance. It was because it was not just his personal opinion that the representatives from all over the country felt more and more that The prospect of this rural tax and fee reform, which everyone is eagerly experimenting with, is not so optimistic. As the earliest proponent of this reform and a direct participant in the pilot project in Taihe County, He Kaiyin also expressed his opinions clearly on some issues in the reform.He said that nowadays, under the conditions of a market economy, the prices of various commodities are almost liberalized, except for such bulky agricultural products as grains, which are still ordered by the country at a fixed price, which prevents grain from becoming a commodity, and its comparative benefits are gradually decreasing. There is no doubt that , this ordering system must be abolished, and the market and price of grain must also be liberalized, otherwise China's agriculture will not be able to develop further.Of course, this requires conditions. We use public grain instead of order in the method of taxation and fee reform. It is precisely based on this consideration. This habit, the collection and payment of public grain, is convenient for farmers and highly transparent. The most important thing is that we link the reform of taxes and fees with the reform of the grain purchase and sale system, which will prepare the conditions for the next reform of the grain purchase and sale system. .Only when the reform of the grain purchasing and marketing system is successfully achieved, the grain market and grain prices are fully and thoroughly liberalized, a large circulation is formed, and a large market is cultivated, the closed community structure will finally be dismantled, and China's rural areas can be said to have great hope! He Kaiyin's speech had a strong theoretical color, but because he spoke in simple terms and was very persuasive, the venue suddenly became quiet. Even people drinking tea and walking around were afraid of disturbing others. Slow and light. This atmosphere obviously infected He Kaiyin himself, and he became agitated.He said, in fact, what we are doing is only the reform of the method of collecting agricultural taxes and fees, not the reform of the rural tax and fee system in the actual sense.If the reform of the tax and fee system is carried out now, the legislative department may come to stop it immediately, as evidenced by the cancellation of the reform of Xinxing Town in Guoyang County by the county people's congress.Therefore, it will definitely have relatively large limitations and incompleteness, and its purpose is only to focus on the method of standardizing expropriation. First, reduce the burden on farmers as much as possible. Clear and convenient.Although it is not entirely fair and reasonable, and there are indeed unavoidable difficulties, compared with the arbitrary charges in the past, farmers are quite satisfied. Of course, he also wanted to say: what is being done today is only the reform of the tax collection method, and it is so difficult that it is like walking on thin ice, and it is almost dead; in fact, even if the tax reform is really carried out, it can only deepen rural areas A breakthrough in the reform, the key is to drive the reform of the rural political system.Although everyone knows that the lag of political system reform has seriously affected the progress of China's reform and opening up, but no one said so clearly at the meeting. Of course, what he said today is tantamount to saying nothing. Du Ying, who presided over the meeting, made the following remarks when making the final summary of the meeting. "My general feeling is that we discussed a key issue at a critical moment in China's rural reform and development. Why can we say this? Because our entire country is now in a period of rapid industrialization growth. In terms of stage, the conditions of agriculture, rural areas and farmers will be an important aspect that determines the destiny of our country's modernization. In the past two years, the situation of "three rural areas" is generally good, but the existing problems are also more prominent Yes, some contradictions are already very acute, and these issues are undoubtedly closely related to the content of our discussion at this meeting."