Chapter 43 Chapter IX: Dare to Ask Where the Way Is——3 Anxiety in Xiaogang Village

In the golden autumn of 2002, the reform of rural taxes and fees in Anhui Province has entered its third year.The determination of the Anhui Provincial Party Committee and the provincial government to "reduce the burden" is not insignificant, and the efforts made are not insignificant. However, the "three chaos" in the countryside suddenly broke out again, and there was a lot of "wildfire burning" Endless, the spring breeze blows and regenerates" trend. This rebound in farmers' burdens is so fierce that many people did not expect it. According to "Xin'an Evening News": From August 20th to September 1st, 2002, in just 13 days, there were as many as 369 letters from the people complaining about the arbitrary fees charged by students' parents, almost all over Anhui. everywhere.Among them, 53 cases were in Linquan County, 36 cases in Funan County, 30 cases in Guzhen County, 14 cases in Taihe County, 21 cases in Si County, 46 cases in Dingyuan County, and 46 cases in Wangjiang County. Sixteen cases, sixteen cases in Taihu County, fifteen cases in Tianchang County, nineteen cases in Guichi District, Chizhou City...

In fact, the seriousness of the problem is far from the reports from the masses received from the Anhui Provincial Price Bureau. The complaints from various places are not only about education, but also not only in August and September of this year. Since the pilot program, the work of "burden reduction" has been in a "high pressure" situation, but the problem of agriculture-related fees has always been a prominent problem that plagues rural economic development and social stability. The Anhui Provincial Price Inspection Institute carried out a major inspection of agriculture-related charges for this purpose. During the inspection, it was found that in some places, there were as few as a dozen items, dozens of items, and as many as hundreds of items; It covers education, land, justice, civil affairs, power supply, finance, taxation, industry and commerce, health, public security, etc.; the content of charges also involves going to school, building a house, getting married, birth, old age, sickness and death, selling agricultural and sideline products, etc.

It can be said that this is a comprehensive "resurrection". According to the provisions of the provincial government’s “A Letter to Farmers in the Whole Province” at the beginning of the pilot project, farmers are not allowed to charge any other fees for building houses except for the five yuan land certificate fee charged by the land management department, but some In the process of going through the approval procedures for building houses, local farmers pay so many items and high standards that they cannot bear it again. Not only the cost of land certificates, but also land acquisition management fees, paid land use fees, and rights It belongs to a series of taxes and fees such as change fees, land creation fees, reclamation fees, benefit funds, cultivated land occupation tax, and construction business tax.Farmers are approved to build a house on their own contracted land, and the various expenses need to be 1,000 to 3,000 yuan, and some are even as high as 5,000 yuan!

In addition, some farmers who go out to work to apply for an ID card have to be charged a household registration certificate fee or an ID card delivery fee; when farmers get married, they are also forced to charge a number of paid service fees such as consulting fees; it is obviously a state-invested rural network transformation , farmers not only have to pay for volunteers and small workers, but even for the food expenses of the construction personnel... Wang Taihua, Secretary of the Provincial Party Committee, once again made a fuss. In order to consolidate the results of rural tax and fee reform and effectively reduce the burden on farmers, the Anhui Provincial Party Committee and the Provincial Government have instructed relevant departments to seriously investigate and correct cases of arbitrary fees for primary and secondary schools and rural housing construction that have been strongly reported by the masses. Resolutely stop and effectively prevent this rebound in the burden of farmers.

The Price Bureau of Qianshan County and the County Education Commission jointly exceeded their authority and violated the regulations. They issued administrative charging documents and changed the charging standards and scope of primary and secondary schools without authorization. The deputy director of the bureau's business was punished with major administrative demerits; the director of the construction office of Dazhuang Town, Si County, the party secretary and mayor of Yangxian Town, Shou County, Sanjue Town of Mengcheng County, Zhutuan Township of Huaiyuan County, and the Three Towers of Funan County A group of party and government leaders in towns and townships have also been dismissed, demerited, or severely warned by the party because of arbitrary fees.

The General Office of the Provincial Party Committee and the General Office of the Provincial Government have notified several typical cases of increasing the burden on farmers.The circular pointed out that the Provincial Party Committee requires all localities to further strengthen the leadership of rural tax and fee reforms, and at the same time, cases of violating regulations and arbitrarily increasing farmers' burdens must be resolutely discovered, investigated and dealt with, and will never be tolerated.Where the problem of farmers' burden is serious, in addition to the responsibility of the person directly responsible, the responsibility of the main party and government leaders of the county (city, district) should also be investigated.The circular pointed out that both the provincial and municipal levels have set up offices for the investigation and handling of agriculture-related cases, and asked all counties (cities, districts) to set up such offices as soon as possible, and to make public the telephone number for reporting to the public, so as to form an agricultural-related problem in the whole province. supervision and investigation network.

During this period, we continued to receive letters and phone calls from farmers who we interviewed in the past two years, reporting that they had only had a few days of comfortable life there, and the cadres in the county, township and village stretched out their hands again. The "three chaos" made a comeback. Many excuses for arbitrary charges are even dumbfounding and shocking. In Fengmiao Town, Lingbi County, where the "Dagao Village Incident" that shocked several counties in the two provinces took place, farmers have remained silent until now. , "You will never be polite to him."

The most incredible thing is what happened later in Wangying Village, Baimiao Town, Linquan County.The complaint letter written by the villagers of Wangying Village to the relevant parties began with the seven or eight thousand words: "History has entered the 21st century, and China has entered a legal society today. The democratic rights, property rights and personal rights of the villagers in our Wangying administrative village are still being subjected to such brutal violations. Please see Li Xia, deputy secretary of the Baimiao Town Party Committee, Zhou Zhanmin, director of the town civil affairs office, and Wang Junbin, secretary of the village branch, committed atrocities in Wangying!"

Seeing Wang Junbin's name, we couldn't help being surprised. ——Isn’t this the same Wang Junbin who took the lead in petitioning, was once hunted down with an ultimatum, expelled from the party, and then received the attention of the central government to solve the problem, regained his party membership and was elected as the village party secretary? How come when Wang Ying was "forced to hold another collective petition", the leader who petitioned back then became the target of the petition? Judging from the pleadings, officials in Wangying Village once again broke into houses, stole food and beat people, and concealed the "disaster relief funds" allocated by the state. After the villagers raised their opinions, the town and village officials became angry and continued The trick is repeated, and law enforcement agencies are used to arrest people.

After stating the "disaster reduction event", the letter of complaint wrote: "Agricultural tax apology reduction and exemption funds are special funds allocated by the central finance and provincial finance to reduce or exempt farmers in the disaster-stricken areas in the year of the disaster. The warmth of the government, knowing that the party and the government are always concerned about the life and production of farmers, and are always concerned about the development of the rural economy. Officials who dare to make a fuss about such money, what they take away is not an ordinary sum. This is the love of the party and the government for the farmers in the disaster area!"

After reading it, I was overwhelmed.The change of roles before and after Wang Junbin also made us fall into painful and long-term contemplation. Could it be said that the old system in rural China today is really a pool of "magic water" that can change all those who fall into it beyond recognition? This reminds us of our trip to Xiaogang in the spring of 2001.It was the day when the National Rural Tax and Fee Reform Pilot Conference was about to be held in Hefei. We really wanted to know the birthplace of the great reform that shocked the world more than 20 years ago - "the first village of China's reform" , today's scenario. When mentioning the burden of farmers in the past, Yan Hongchang shook his head like the village chiefs we have seen.He said, "Xiaogang became famous because he took the lead in the "big contract", and the three sentences of "big contract" are now widely known: "Pay over to the country, keep enough for the collective, and the rest is your own." Yes.’ Unexpectedly, the later troubles came from these three sentences. All the “three chaos” winds blowing from above, there is no one, not in the guise of the country and the collective, and there is no way to “communicate” later. It's enough. You can feed the pigs. The hog tax is too much and rotten. The villagers are so angry that they don't feed them at all. If someone bought a tractor and paid the machinery management tax, it doesn't count. You can't get on the road. , road maintenance fee, supervision fee, inspection fee, any one of which is missing; no matter whether there are "special products" in your field, you still have to pay "special product tax"." "Of course, after the tax reform, these messy taxes and fees disappeared. However, the income of villages has generally declined, and new problems have emerged." Yan Hongchang said: "Now there is no office fee in the village. The life of the town government is not easy. The funds returned to Xiaogang Village are only 3,080 yuan a year." He stretched out his right hand in front of us, wringing his fingers, and calculated a detailed account: "There are seven village cadres. Party secretary, director, and clerk each have an annual salary of 1800 yuan; the other four people have an annual salary of only 1,000 yuan each. Salary, it can’t be said that it is too much, but this item alone costs 9,400 yuan. There are no enterprises in the village that can save money, and the salaries of village cadres are the first to be lost; Naturally, this has become a problem; besides, there are three "five-guarantee households" in the village, and each household pays 1,800 yuan a year, and the three people pay 5,400 yuan a year, so it is difficult to cash in on this support fee." He resignedly said a jingle: "Now, the national finances are skyrocketing, the county-level finances are staggering, the township finances are nothing, and the village-level finances are wiped out." He smiled bitterly.Said: "In order to do a good job in this tax reform pilot work, the central government and the province have allocated special funds. Fengyang County has allocated 2 million yuan for village-level construction special funds, and all large and small villages have allocated 5,000 yuan. This is obvious. It is the greatest support for us. But the gap is too big, and it will not help. Of course, as the cadres of Xiaogang Village, no matter how difficult we are, we can no longer ask the villagers, and the village's "one matter, one discussion" cannot exceed the regulations. In the first year of the tax reform, some village cadres could not figure it out, so they let go of their burdens. I went to work in the city. In the past two years, I have reimbursed a total of 16 yuan from the village, so I went to congratulate the establishment of our Xiaoxihe Township Committee; I had no choice but to pay out of my own pocket for a meeting in the county; I have spent more than 200 yuan to buy office supplies for the village." We were surprised to hear that.Just ask: "Even if you get the 'annual salary' of 1,800 yuan on time and in full, you only get 150 yuan a month. With this amount of money, it is still a problem to support your family. Go out for meetings and buy office supplies. , and have to spend their own money, how do you live? How can you be the village chief?" Yan Hongchang laughed loudly: "Depend on the children, rely on the wife." He even showed a bit of pride: "The second brother Yan Yushan and the third brother Yan Delan, the two brothers and sisters went to Shenzhen in the early years, and now they are doing well. Yan Yushan is still working as a manager in a company; the fifth brother Yan Dejin, I also work as an economic reporter on the TV station in the provincial capital; my lover Duan Yongxia has also been engaged in family farming, raising chickens and pigs, and the income is not bad. My village head depends entirely on their support." When we bid farewell to Xiaogang Village and returned to Hefei, we kept thinking: This is Xiaogang Village!In order to protect the honor and image of "the first village of China's reform", Yan Hongchang can be so selfless, can behave high-spirited and upright, with this kind of awareness and state, with this honor and responsibility, I believe that no matter how hard they are, no matter how hard it is, they will never lose their lives. I will never go out of the pockets of ordinary people again.However, this obviously does not explain, let alone guarantee that village officials, township officials, and county officials in other places will "restrain themselves and restore rituals" and "seek compromise" like Yan Hongchang and others.Under the "high-pressure" situation where the "wind" of the tax reform is relatively tight, some people may become more restrained, but if there is no fundamental change in the many malpractices and defects in China's agricultural system and policies, farmers will It is almost impossible to completely stop and effectively prevent unreasonable burdens.This kind of rebound in the burden of farmers seems to be only a matter of time!It is so difficult to reduce the unreasonable burden of farmers, so how can we solve the problems of farmers' prosperity, agricultural modernization, and the rapid expansion of urban and rural areas? Looking at it this way, reforming taxes and fees, reducing the burden on farmers, and even scientifically farming and adjusting the structure of the agricultural industry are all very necessary and close, but they are obviously not the fundamental solution to the "three rural" problems policy, the fundamental way out.