Taxation refers to the general term for land and various taxes, and the amount collected according to laws or customs, especially the expenses payable to the government. For example, Tang Hanyu's "Chaozhou Sacrifice Divine Text" No. 2: "The peasant sang woman will not be able to pay taxes and eat food and clothing." Human beings, from a single individual, evolved into tribes, and eventually formed a state, and the emergence of the state will be accompanied by a "tax system."
So why is there a "tax system"?
With the development of social productive forces, the social division of labor has become more and more clear, and thus, the gap between the rich and the poor has emerged, leading to the emergence of classes. When classes emerge, class contradictions arise, and class contradictions need to be resolved by a powerful organization, which is the "state."
After that, in order to fulfill its functions, the state will obtain a certain amount of fiscal revenue compulsorily and free of charge according to certain standards to ensure the operation of the state apparatus, which is the formation process of taxation. During the Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou dynasties, there were "eleven taxes" and "tugong" systems, which marked the gradual formation of the tax system of slave society.
In fact, the development of slave society to feudal society is a process of "upgrading" the tax system.
The "decline of expropriation" in the State of Qi, the "initial tax acres" and "making qiujia" in the State of Lu, and the "monopoly system" implemented by some commodities led to the gradual disintegration of slavery production relations. The new taxation system in the Warring States period pushed the previous reform to a new climax, which also laid the material foundation under the feudal system, thus embodying the spirit of exploration of "tax reform".
In the pre-Qin period, force and military service played a positive role in the security of the imperial court and the construction of national defense. Taxation and servitude, as an important means of the imperial court's duties, not only consolidated the imperial power, but also further maintained the patriarchal system, thus promoting the economic development under slavery.
The Xia Dynasty, as the first slave state in China's history, created a relatively complete tax system.
Among them, there are two types of field taxes:
A type of land tax that collects a fixed amount according to the yield of land and the type of goods;
The other is to collect taxes on native products according to the tributes of local specialties.
According to legend, when Dayu was ruling the water, he observed the land, identified the soil quality, and then fixed the field. According to the level of the field and the fertility of the land, it is divided into nine different grades, and thus the corresponding taxation level is stipulated. According to historical records, the Xia Dynasty divided the country into five regions, and the area outside the royal city was designated as one area every 250 kilometers, and according to the geographical location of each district and the transportation cost, the items to be paid were determined, and the fineness and roughness were not the same.
In general, the closer to the royal city, the lower the transportation cost, the more delicate items are paid; the farther away from the royal city, the higher the transportation cost, and most of the payment is rough and worthless items.
With regard to the proportion of taxes, it is paid at 10% of all harvests. Although the year is good or bad, the overall situation will not be too bad. This practice of the Xia Dynasty was to sum the harvest in recent years, calculate an average, and then set it as a tribute quota. After that, whether it is a drought year or a bumper harvest year, the amount of grain paid every year is the prescribed amount.
Therefore, the taxation of the Xia Dynasty, in fact, was a kind of agricultural quota tax.
In addition to agricultural taxes, the Xia Dynasty also had another important tax revenue, that is, "Tugong", that is, the treasures paid by local princes and vassal ministers to the kings of the Xia Dynasty. According to historical records, at that time, princes, vassal states, and tribes from all over the world paid tribute to countless rare treasures to the Xia Dynasty. Mainly local expensive specialties, such as: silk, brocade cotton, ivory craft, precious jewelry and so on.
Tugong is divided into regular tribute and temporary tribute, the difference is whether it is "regular" or "temporary". Temporary tributes are generally offered with fresh fruit and rare items. In order to ensure the smooth implementation of taxes and the stability of taxes in the Xia Kingdom, the Xia Dynasty invented a unified "stone" as a measuring tool, thus measuring the amount of taxation.
The taxation system of the Xia Dynasty is enough to show that since the establishment of the slave dynasty, China has determined the state's tax system by clear legal means.
With the establishment of the Shang Dynasty, the tributary system of the Xia Dynasty was still followed, but the Shang Dynasty had a "helper method", that is, a field grant system based on the well field system invented by the Shang Dynasty, thus better clarifying the field tax system of the Shang Dynasty.
Zhu Xi once analyzed in detail some of the provisions of the "well field system": 630 mu of land is divided into 9 plots, each 70 mu, and in the middle is public land, which requires eight families to work together; outside the private land, each of the eight families has an area. The form of the tax system is that the public land that eight families jointly water and clean, all the goods produced belong to the state, while all the private land is owned by individuals, and there is no need to pay taxes.
This land endowment policy, in fact, is a form of servitude rent that is aided by the people. What the state levies, in fact, is the labor of the laborers. The tax rate borne by each family is different, Mencius said that it was the "eleventh tax rate", and Zhu Xi said that it was the "Nine-One tax rate". Each family bears 1/8, or 12.5%, which is actually higher than the eleventh tax.
During the Zhou Dynasty, the tax system of Xia Shang continued. The Western Zhou Dynasty still implemented the "well field system", and on this basis, the "thorough method" was introduced. That is to say, "within a well, all households need to work together to complete the cultivation, and the products obtained are evenly distributed, of which the products obtained from 100 acres belong to the state", which is about eleven taxes.
It can be said that the "thorough method" is the same as the "auxiliary law", which is an improvement on the basis of the "well field system". However, the collection of the Thorough Law is different from the Auxiliary Law: first, the area of land granted is not the same; secondly, the Xia Dynasty fixed a fixed tax, and the Zhou Dynasty adopted a proportional tax; finally, the Thorough Law advocated more work and more gain, which was conducive to mobilizing the enthusiasm of the peasants. It can be seen that Chefa is much more advanced than Gongfa.
In order to better establish national defense, the Zhou Dynasty also introduced the "forced labor" system, and all men over twenty or sixty were selected as the objects of "forced labor". Of course, there are no absolutes, and there are also privileged classes that do not need to serve, such as the sages, if they are very talented, do not need to serve. In addition, the elderly and the sick do not need to serve, which is a humane system.
In short, the tribute system implemented by the three slave dynasties of Xia, Shang, and Western Zhou during their reign was the prototype of the tax system. To a certain extent, the servitude of these three dynasties has a certain role in promoting national construction and national defense and security.
Resources:
["Taxes in the Age of Slavery", "Guan Zi Shan Zhi Shu", "Mencius Teng Wen GongShang"]