After much consideration, Zhu Youzhen finally did not formally challenge the Donglin Party members at this meeting, after all, compared with these Donglin Party members who desperately wanted to maintain the old system and customs, he attached more importance to today's annual work plan report meeting that represented the comprehensive reform of the government and government.

Many of the reform plans of last year mainly focused on the reform of the military and the central bureaucracy, which seemed to be huge, but it did not have much impact on the middle and lower classes of the entire Ming society.

But from today onwards, all reform policies are not only unified under one goal, but also represent the official beginning of the transformation of society as a whole. Chongzhen, who had a clearer purpose than the officials present, naturally would not be distracted by the Donglin Party.

In the final analysis, the purpose of his suppression of the Donglin Party is to promote reform, not to suppress the Donglin Party talents to promote reform, and the difference in goals naturally determines Chongzhen's attitude towards the Donglin Party members, which is based on their non-obstruction of reform.

But in the eyes of the courtiers, his current performance was undoubtedly regarded as the emperor still trying to maintain the balance of political power between the court and China. This made some officials present very regretful that they could not take this opportunity to clear out the Donglin Party from the DPRK again. However, they did not jump out in a hurry, and continued to fall into the well against these Donglin Party members.

First, there were no middle- and low-level officials at the meeting as their pathfinder pawns, and it was too risky for them to directly run out to test Chongzhen's true thoughts. Second, Chongzhen is obviously not an emperor who can be easily influenced, compared to his brother and grandfather, this young emperor has a particularly deep grasp of civil affairs.

While these officials were thinking differently, Guo Yunhou was already standing in the hall and started the report on the work plan of the household department this year.

The work plan of the household department this year has three general objectives: First, the county-level organs of grain bureaus will be established in the seven regions of Huguang, Jiangnan, Henan, Shandong, Shaanxi, Shanxi, and Beizhili, so as to initially establish a grain transportation and reserve system in the Ming Dynasty.

Second, it is necessary to continue to promote the establishment of local outlets of various banks, so as to convert the work of dismantling tax and silver at the local level into bank exchange, so as to eliminate all kinds of fraud and corruption in the process of dismantling tax and silver at the local level.

The third is to officially launch the monetary system of gold, silver, paper money, and copper coins, and determine that the natural form of gold and silver bullion does not have a monetary function, but where bank outlets have been established in counties, the tax authorities are not allowed to directly accept gold and silver as taxes, nor are they allowed to require taxpayers to pay gold and silver as taxes.

In the future, all taxes of the Ming Dynasty will be officially issued by the imperial court gold, silver coins, paper money, copper coins as the tax currency, where the above currency is used as a means of paying taxes, no additional fire consumption shall be levied, violators will be severely punished.

Since the tax is paid in currency, the original tax method and tax amount must also be readjusted. In order to prevent farmers from being deprived of money to pay taxes, the grain bureaus set up in various localities will purchase grain during the harvest season, and the currency paid will be used to pay taxes on the acre.

In order to prevent excessively low grain prices from harming the interests of peasants in the process of grain procurement, the Ministry of Household Affairs will set up formal price bureaus in each province to collect local price information, so that it can be handed over to the imperial court to set the grain purchase price, which will be unified on a provincial basis.

In addition, the Ministry of Household Affairs believes that after the rent in kind is changed to monetary rent, the original fixed rent is obviously no longer suitable. For example, the current tariff stipulates that the tax on one mu of land in the north is 535%, while the tax is 243% in the south, based on the income of one stone per mu in the north and 2 stone per mu in the south.

However, because this starting point is calculated according to rice, and there is more wheat and less rice fields in the north, the land tax in the north is invisibly heavier. However, the acres of land in the south need to bear the cost of transporting tax grain, so the actual tax paid is not much lower than that in the north. In particular, the tax collectors who paid the grain to the capital often went bankrupt because of this.

If we add the different amounts of additional taxes and fire consumption in various places, the actual tax amount per mu has exceeded 10%. In addition, because of the hermit and the fugitive population, these lost tax revenues are distributed among other tax households, ranging from 30% of the year's income to more than 50% of the worst ones.

“… Although the tax rules of our Daming Dynasty are light, the additional additional tax is several times or even 10 times more than the positive amount, and the people's livelihood is not difficult.

In view of this, the Ministry of Household intends to reorganize the tax rules, regardless of whether it is a government land, a private land, a heavily leased land, or a non-official land, to adopt a unified tax payment and abolish the fixed tax system.

All fields are divided into upper, middle, and lower grades, and the tax is not converted into rice, but the proportion of the value of the actual crop per mu is levied. After discussing with the household officials, it was concluded that a tax of 25% for Ueda, 20% for Nakata, and 15% for Shimoda should be feasible.

After the implementation of the new tariff, the additional levy and other conscription items in the region should be uniformly exempted. The new tariff will be implemented in all provinces from this year. ”

Guo Yunhou's words immediately aroused an uproar, and the officials in the palace were obviously very dissatisfied with the tax reform plan proposed by the Ministry of Households. Whether it was out of concern that the common people would suffer a heavier burden because of the new tariff, or whether it was against the interests of the local gentry by resisting the grain bureau to buy grain directly from the people, it was clear that there were many opponents and few supporters of the officials.

Looking at the current situation, Chongzhen sighed in his heart, there are so many opponents in such a small range, and it is obviously impossible to promote it all at once.

Huang Liji, who was not very firm in supporting the new tax reform, also began to hesitate when he saw the opposition of so many colleagues. However, Guo Yunhou can still stand there with the old god, waiting for Chongzhen's final decision.

Zhu Youzhen thought for a long time before he quieted down the ministers, and he said cautiously: "Obviously, there are still many flaws in the new tax system, but we always have to try to find out what is wrong with it.

I feel that the implementation of the provinces is indeed a bit hasty, but looking for a few pilot areas, it should not be a big problem. Could it be that the experiment of just a few counties can make the sky fall down?

In Shanxi, Henan, Shandong, Beizhili, Huguang, and Songjiang Prefectures, the household department will each take 1-3 counties to carry out a pilot of the new tax system, with a limit of one year, and if the people do not accept it, then we will change it back. Therefore, the pilot of the new tax system should not be passed on to the outside world for the time being, and no further discussion should be continued.

Of course, in these counties that have experimented with the new tax system, the household department should strengthen supervision to prevent the emergence of people who take advantage of the reform of the tax system to incite the people to slander the government and government. ”

Under Chongzhen's half-forced and half-compromised attitude, the officials present finally reluctantly agreed to Chongzhen's proposal to pilot the new tax reform.

Zhu Youzhen immediately said: "Other places will be selected by the household department, but the Gyeonggi area will be selected in Shunyi County, and the Songjiang area will be selected in Shanghai.

The new tax system just proposed by the Ministry of Household Affairs is a good idea to exempt local levies and forced labor through a one-time tax. However, the opinions of the ministers just now are also very reasonable, and it is obviously impossible to control the local officials with the manpower of the central government and not profit from them.

First, the tax on upper, middle, and lower grades will be reduced by 5 per cent, and local governments will be allowed to levy additional agricultural taxes to subsidize local expenditures, but the surcharge shall not exceed 25 percent of the positive amount. As the first person responsible, the prefectural ordinance of the prefecture will first pursue the local prefectural ordinance and then the party who has violated the tax system.

Second, the yield of upper, middle and lower fields is based on the average yield of major crops in the past 3-5 years, and the harvest in extremely good and famine years is not calculated in advance. No additional levy shall be levied on the grain that exceeds the average yield per mu due to the people's personal efforts in farming.

Third, those whose annual average agricultural income does not exceed 150 catties of staple grain are exempted from agricultural tax, and miscellaneous taxes that hinder the development of agriculture, rural sideline industries, and livestock are not levied.

In addition, the poll tax in the pilot new tax system area will also be reformed, and those who are unable to work or have an annual personal income of less than 45 yuan will be exempted, from 45 yuan or more, for every doubling of income, the tax will be increased by 5%, divided into eight levels of 5%-40%.

The name of the poll tax has also been changed to personal income tax, which is a progressive tax system and different taxes are levied in different stages of income. As for the original preferential treatment and exemption policy for the gentry, it must also be readjusted. Instead of simply exempting the full amount, the threshold will be adjusted according to the level.

Because of the difference between income tax and poll tax, the previous tax and grain concessions and poll tax exemptions are no longer deductible from each other. During the implementation of the new tax system, the imperial court could accept the evaluation of the new tax system by the local gentry, but no one was allowed to openly resist the new tax system. ”

After Chongzhen took a lot of time to explain to the officials what a progressive tax system was, and the officials were not within the scope of collection, the officials finally reluctantly agreed with Chongzhen's suggestion.

This is also because the new tax system is a pilot and will not endanger the vital interests of most officials, so they do not have a great incentive to fight Chongzhen to the end. Besides, the abolition of the poll tax for the people at the bottom is a moral policy, but it is also a thankless policy.

According to their estimates, the new tax system will be over the course of a year. Because the abolition of the poll tax will greatly reduce fiscal revenue, for the Ming Dynasty, which is already short of treasury, this is completely a beautiful plan, but it cannot be implemented.

After the officials finally quieted down, Zhu Youzhen did not stop there, he continued: "In addition, I intend to change the poll tax to personal income tax for merchants, artisans, salt farmers, and fishermen. Of course, this tax reform can be discussed openly and the opinions of the people in the above industries are solicited, and I intend to implement this tax reform for a period of one year, after taking into account the opinions of all parties..."