Text/Li Fuyuan
Section 7 Gao Bingfang: Founder of China Income Tax
On July 1, 1936, after a long period of preparation and preparation, the Ministry of Finance of the National Government promulgated the Interim Regulations on Income Tax, and the direct tax marked by income tax came into force. During the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the collection of income tax contributed greatly to increasing the state's finances. In recognition of the income tax department's significant contribution, the National Government has designated 1 July of each year as the "Direct Tax Festival". Naming festivals and holding celebrations after a professional tax category is rare in Chinese history. Gao Bingfang, a Boshan man who founded and implemented this tax system, was also named "the god of finance and taxation of the Republic of China" and "the father of direct taxation".
▲ Gao Bingfang / Bulletin of the Field Council, No. 2, 1928, p. 9
First, the establishment and development of direct taxes
Gao Bingfang (1890-1970), zi chunru, number chunyu, Zibo Boshan regional town of Dalijia village. In 1909, Gao Bingfang was admitted to the Shandong Agriculture and Forestry School in Jinan, where he won the first place in the homework examination and has been serving as the class leader. From 1912 to 1914, due to his father's illness, he served as a teacher at the First and Fourth Higher Primary Schools in Boshan County. In 1916, Gao Bingfang was sent by the Shandong Provincial Government to study in the Forestry Department of Jinling University in Nanjing. In 1918, the Jinling University Autonomous Association was established, and he was elected as the first autonomous president.
In 1919, Gao Bingfang graduated from Jinling University and was appointed as the director of the Jinan Model Forestry Bureau. Overcoming the problems of drought and lack of water, he opened a forest farm in the northern foothills of Mount Taishan in the Great Wall Ridge and set it as the first forest farm. Because of their diligent work, attention to people's livelihood, and harmonious relations with farmers, farmers in Licheng and Tai'an counties once jointly built a archway that "benefits boundless" to show praise and commemoration. During this period, he used his spare time to write "Introduction to Forest science in China", which was published by the Commercial Press.
After World War I, the Beiyang government demanded that Japan return occupied Qingdao to China in accordance with the Paris Peace Conference Convention. To this end, the government has set up a "Sino-Japanese Lu case supervision office" to take over the aftermath of Shandong. Kong Xiangxi served as the head of the Industrial Division of the Office of the Governor. In 1922, through the introduction of forestry expert Ling Daoyang, Gao Bingfang was transferred to the Industrial Division of the Public Office and a member of the Public Property Committee with the qualification of director of the Forestry Bureau, and became acquainted with Kong Xiangxi.
Gao Bingfang is capable and extremely responsible, and is deeply appreciated by Kong Xiangxi. During this period, after in-depth investigation and study, he mastered a large amount of first-hand information, and put forward the case of "The Value of Forests That Japan Arbitrarily Felled After The Pacific Conference Resolved to Return to Qingdao Should Be Returned to China" and strived for national power. This proposal was later published in The Forest of Qingdao.
In 1924, Zhang Zongchang went to Shandong to serve as an overseer, when the warlords were fighting and the smoke was everywhere; Gao Bingfang was forced to leave Qingdao to serve as the chief of the Chahar Industrial Department and the director of the agricultural test field in the province, and then went to Guangzhou, defected to Kong Xiangxi, and served as the secretary of the Ministry of Finance of the Guangdong Revolutionary Government. After the Northern Expedition, the Nationalist government moved the capital to Nanjing, Kong Xiangxi was appointed minister of industry and commerce, later changed to minister of industry, and Gao Bingfang was appointed director of the General Affairs Department, in charge of all things.
During his tenure, Gao Bingfang had the courage to take charge of things and did a lot of things in the implementation of domestic product exhibitions and industrial experiments; in life, he was shrewd and capable, and had a very harmonious relationship with Kong Xiangxi, not only the affairs of the organs were handled in an orderly manner, but even most of the household chores of the Kong family were handled by him, and Kong Xiangxi regarded him as a confidant, and everything was handled by Gao Bingfang. However, the rest of the Kong family did not have much good feelings for Gao Bingfang. Gao Bingfang had to take Kong Lingkan and Kong Lingjun to school every day, and the two children were favored since childhood, arrogant and unreasonable, and cried and made a lot of noise if they were not satisfied. One day, Gao Bingfang took Kong Lingkan to school as usual, and Kong Lingkan was making unreasonable trouble and refused to get on the car for a long time. Gao Bingfang was afraid of delaying school, so he picked up Kong Lingkan and went to the car, but Kong Lingkan grabbed and kicked and shouted for help. The incident alarmed Song Qingling, who was not very kind to Gao Bingfang, and after seeing this farce, he was very dissatisfied and sharply accused Gao Bingfang [1]. After Kong Xiangxi became the minister of finance, he wanted Gao Bingfang to be the director of general affairs of the Ministry of Finance, but Song Qiling obstructed it, and Kong Xiangxi could not, so he placed Gao Bingfang as the director of the tax department.
Within the Ministry of Finance, the Department of Taxation nominally administers the national taxation, but has no authority and does not collect it in practice. Because within the Ministry of Finance, each tax system has its own departments, the salt tax is under the supervision of the Salt Administration Department and the Salt Affairs Bureau, the customs duties are responsible for the Customs Department, the excise tax is controlled by the Goods Department, and the land and other local finances are handled by the provinces, and the tax management is extremely chaotic.
In May 1934, the Ministry of Finance held the Second National Finance Conference for the purpose of sorting out local finances. At the meeting, Gao Bingfang and the Taxation Department of Gao Bingfang and his department of taxation believed that there were many local taxation names, many drawbacks, and damage to the national system, and proposed a plan for sorting out local taxation, which was unanimously approved. After the meeting, the Ministry of Finance set up a local tax committee, and Gao Bingfang concurrently served as the chief secretary.
In order to carry out the tax reform to the end, Gao Bingfang found Ning Cheng'en, who had studied a lot in finance and taxation, for consultation. Ning Cheng'en proposed that all kinds of taxes be unified into income tax, and the Taxation Department should uniformly levy them. Gao Bingfang thought it was feasible, and after reporting to Kong Xiangxi for approval, a meeting of provincial finance ministers was convened to make arrangements for deployment.
▲ Gao Bingfang wrote a speech, "Direct Tax Monthly", 1941 [ Inaugural Issue, Page 1 ]
On July 1, 1936, the Ministry of Finance established the Direct Tax Preparatory Office, and Gao Bingfang served as the director of the Direct Tax Preparatory Office and the director of the Direct Tax Department. The Direct Tax Preparation Division is responsible for the preparation of the Implementing Rules for Income Tax. The Detailed Rules for the Implementation of Income Tax shall be submitted to the National Government and the Executive Yuan for promulgation throughout the country by order of the National Government and the Executive Yuan, and shall come into force on the same day as the Interim Regulations on Income Tax. On the date of implementation, the Direct Tax Preparation Division was changed to the Income Tax Affairs Division, in keeping with the name. Since then, the provinces have gradually set up income tax offices and prepared for the start of levies. After a period of preparation, the income tax was officially introduced on January 1, 1937, thus taking the first step in the establishment of direct taxation in China.
▲ Gao Bingfang writes on the personnel system of direct taxation, Training Monthly, 1940 [ Vol. 1, No. 2, pp. 28-33]
Gao Bingfang was well aware of the various drawbacks of the old tax and the bad deeds of the old tax collectors, so at the beginning of the establishment of the income tax, he advocated the "new tax and new spirit", implemented the examination and employment of personnel, recruited young students who graduated from universities and high schools, and established a new team of auditors. In the recruitment work, he put an end to nepotism, and non-professional knowledge was resolutely not used. In order to improve the professional quality of employees, he presided over the training course for direct tax personnel and trained senior tax personnel. He often taught that we should adhere to the academic first, advocated the integration of education and work, combined theory and practice, cultivated an academic style in the new tax camp, and stipulated that tax personnel could be promoted to the next level after a certain number of years of service.
In order to have rules to follow, he worked while groping, and gradually formed a relatively complete set of work system, initially, there was only one "Interim Regulations on the Examination of Tax Personnel" system, he successively added, and finally formed 15 relevant documents, providing a theoretical basis for the work to be carried out.
In order to strictly enforce work procedures, Gao Bingfang put forward the four-character tax training of "honesty, ability, diligence and perseverance" as a norm for the work and life of tax personnel. "Honesty" means to discipline oneself and be strict with the law and be spotlessly spotless; "can" means to have the ability to do a competent job; "diligence" means to maintain the ancient precept of being diligent and able to make up for clumsiness, never be complacent, and be diligent in one's own work; "perseverance" means that one is not afraid of hardships in one's work, one is resolute and persevering, and persists to the end.
The Direct Taxation Office also has the "four winds": the school style - the tax personnel must always maintain the atmosphere of school study; the military style - like the army, have a strict organization, discipline, step in step, and work together; the religious style - like the preaching of pastors, publicize the tax law so that society can understand; the family style - the tax personnel should carry forward the spirit of mutual help and fraternity, and be like brothers and sisters. Gao Bingfang believes that the tax system, tax training, and tax style are the three major foundations of direct taxation, and one of them is indispensable[2].
In the specific taxation process, he implements a system of absolute separation of tax audit and tax collection, and the tax bureau is responsible for verifying the amount of tax, filling in and issuing notices, and the taxpayer holds the document to pay directly to the bank or post office that collects the tax, and transfers it to the account on the same day. In this way, not only has the audit of the revenue and expenditure of the state treasury been unified, but also the fraudulent behaviors such as filling the personal pockets of tax collectors have been reduced, and the state tax revenue has been significantly increased. The budget for direct tax, which began to be levied in 1937, was 5 million yuan in the first year, and then increased year by year, reaching 4.25 billion yuan in 1943 (the total of each tax in charge), accounting for 1/4 of the state's revenue.
▲ Gao Bingfang's inscription for the "Ganqing Tax Monthly", 1944, Vol. 1, No. 1, p. 6
Second, the high level of resentment
With the improvement of the tax system and the steady growth of tax revenue, the Direct Taxation Office gradually became the most important department of the Ministry of Finance from its original name, and Gao Bingfang made great contributions to Kong Xiangxi's finances and became Kong Xiangxi's most important cadre, but his behavior caused jealousy and dissatisfaction among other KmT leaders.
After the outbreak of the War of Resistance Against Japanese Aggression, the CC faction of Chen Lifu and Chen Guofu swelled sharply, and they completely controlled the promotion power of middle and senior cadres of the Kuomintang, and the Central University of Political Science and its affiliated schools under their control were responsible for training senior Kuomintang cadres. At the beginning of the income tax, the policy of employing people by examination was adopted. When preparing for the training course for tax personnel, Chen Guofu immediately suggested to Kong Xiangxi that the proposal to run the tax training class should be abolished, and the income tax system requires cadres, which can be transported by the Central Political School, and if necessary, it can also be handed over to the "Middle Political School" as an agent.
Chen Guofu said this very grandly on the surface, but in essence he wanted to grasp the power of personnel and cultivate his own strength. Kong Xiangxi solicited the opinion of Gao Bingfang, who proceeded from the business side and believed that if the business cadres were not trained by the business organs themselves, the goals of the new tax, the new people, and the new spirit would not be realized. From the struggle between the kong and Chen families for finances, Kong Xiangxi naturally would not let go of Chen. Therefore, Kong Xiangxi rejected Chen's suggestion and still let the Ministry of Finance handle the tax training class on its own. In order to prevent Chen Guofu from continuing to sabotage, Gao Bingfang also suggested that Kong Xiangxi submit to Chiang Kai-shek that Gui Yongqing, the leader of the teaching corps who was serving as the national student military training team at that time, be appointed as the director of the tax training class.
Gui Yongqing was the backbone of the Huangpu clan, and at this time he was stationed at The Xiaoling Wei in Nanjing with Chiang Kai-shek's Guard Corps to defend the capital. After accepting the training director of the tax training class, he was very enthusiastic about his work, and specially lent a classroom and a barracks of the Xiaoling Guard Corps Department for use by the tax training class, which solved the practical difficulties for the tax training class. Because of Gao Bingfang's suggestion, Chiang Kai-shek agreed to let the Ministry of Finance run its own tax training class, and the hopes of the Erchen brothers to meddle in financial power were disappointed, and dissatisfaction with Kong and hatred for Gao also arose.
In 1942, the Direct Taxation Office uniformly collected business tax, and all relations between the business bureaus and business offices of each province and city were managed by the Direct Taxation Administration. At that time, among the business tax sub-bureaus in Sichuan, 6 sub-bureau chiefs were cc-department members of the Central Unification Department, and the Central Unification department had gained a lot of benefits by collecting business taxes over the years. In order to prevent Gao Bingfang from blocking his own financial road, Xu En, director of the Central Bureau of Statistics, sent personnel to the Direct Taxation Office to find Gao Bingfang, saying that 6 sub-bureaus of the Sichuan Provincial Business Tax Bureau were responsible for the tasks of the Central Bureau of Statistics, and the merchants asked them to keep them. Gao Bingfang did not give any mercy and directly refused, he believed that the tax personnel of direct taxation must have certain qualifications, and all qualified tax personnel should be retained, and those who are unqualified cannot be accommodated. The staff of one tax authority cannot share the tasks of another different authority, and the tax officer is required to be moved frequently according to the regulations, and cannot be fixed in one position or one place. Soon, these 6 sub-bureau chiefs were replaced by 5 by Gao Bingfang, and 1 of the remaining directors was also transferred from Jiangjin to Yongchuan.
In the same year's personnel assessment, the national business tax personnel were reviewed and trained, and more than 800 people were laid off before and after, most of whom were part-time, nominal or prosecuted, many of whom were CC members. This move made the CC Department hate it even more and vowed to retaliate.
Gao Bingfang did not give face to the CC department and the central unification, and also showed no mercy to the military unification of the central unification. Dai Kasa, the head of the military command, had always served concurrently as the director of the Anti-Smuggling Administration of the Ministry of Finance, and the anti-smuggling agencies in all localities under the jurisdiction of the Ministry of Finance were controlled by military command personnel, and they often extorted money in the name of direct taxes, and did nothing evil, so that complaints were rife and various sub-bureaus reflected from time to time. Gao Bingfang often commented on the original "Please ask Yunong (Dai's alias) brother to read" or "send to Director Dai", and over time, Dai Kasa has a lot of resentment against it. At a ministerial meeting, Gao Bingfang suggested that the names of the organs under the ministry should only be written on the signs of the ministries and subordinate organs, and not the three words "Ministry of Finance", and often said that the reputation of the Ministry of Finance was damaged by the Anti-Smuggling Bureau, which made Dai Kasa very embarrassed. Later, the Anti-Smuggling Bureau was finally revoked, and Dai Kasa cut off a large source of wealth, so he held a grudge against Gao Bingfang.
▲The Gao Bingfang Case, The Sensational Peidu Case, Inside Chinese Politics, 1948, [ No. 4, pp. 188-190 ]
3. The beginning and end of the corruption case
In the summer of 1944, the Audit Department sent two commissioners to the Direct Tax Office to inspect the books of the "one C deposit". Everyone feels that this matter is very strange, why not check others, only specify the "one C deposit" part? Gao Bingfang believes that the account books are all there, nothing can be made public, and ideologically it is not taken seriously. The audit department came to check several times intermittently, and after the inspection, there was no comment. The agency thought it was over and didn't hear anything until the end of the year. On February 3, 1945, the Direct Taxation Office received an order from the Military Commission to remove Gao Bingfang from his post and submit it to the court for investigation. On February 15, the Ministry of Finance sent secretary Shi Zhenyu to send Gao Bingfang to surrender to the Chongqing Experimental District Court, where he was detained for interrogation.
In order to save her husband, tang Yun, the senior wife, went to Wang Shan to ask Zhang Shizhao to be the defender. Zhang Shizhao has a law firm in Shaanxi Street, Chongqing, accepting litigation cases, he and Gao Bingfang have always known each other, know him well, volunteered to serve as Gao's defender, and personally wrote a defense statement.
On May 3, the court filed a public indictment. The indictment lists all kinds of facts about the use of the "one-C deposit" and is suspected of corruption and fraud, and is accompanied by audit materials from various departments and accountants, which proves that Gao Bingfang repeatedly used his power during his tenure as director of the Direct Taxation Department to use the "one-C deposit" under the pretext of buying rice, rice substitutes, construction fees, etc., but in fact transferred it to business for profit.
On May 25, the court held a public hearing of Gao's case, and Zhang Shizhao personally appeared in court to defend, analyzing and defending the defendants' incriminating evidence listed in the indictment one by one. Shen Junru, a social sage, and others came to the hall to observe.
On June 23, the court opened its hearing for the second time, still repeatedly interrogating the contents of the indictment, repeatedly submitting investigation materials from the Central And Military Command to testify, while turning a blind eye to the materials provided by the defendants. Soon, the debate was declared over and the verdict will be pronounced on June 30.
At 9:00 a.m. on June 30, the court held up its verdict, and Li Maoxuan, president of the Criminal Division, held up the verdict and read it aloud: "Gao Bingfang intends to gain profits, withholds public funds, imposes the death penalty, and deprives public power for life." Read the last sentence, dumb, and quickly retreat. Later, Gao Bingfang recalled the incident and laughed that Li Maoxuan was not a matter of peace of mind when he was an executioner.
As soon as the verdict was pronounced, the court was in an uproar, which was not only unexpected by the ordinary people, but also stunned by the lawyers. Gao Bingfang even cried out for wrongs, and Zhang Shizhao said on the spot that he would continue to appeal, and according to his understanding, such a trial result would make the "Six Laws Book" a useless waste paper.
On the night of the sentencing, Ju Zheng, president of the Judicial Yuan, summoned Xie Guansheng, minister of the Ministry of Justice administration, and Zha Liangjian, president of the Chongqing Experimental District Court, and reprimanded them for not handling the Gao Bingfang case impartially and losing the dignity of the judiciary. The next day, he flew to Lanzhou with anger, and it was not until gao's case was still under trial that he was willing to return to Chongqing.[3]
After the first-instance judgment, 19 groups, including Gao Bingfang's Shandong compatriots Ding Weifen and Kong Decheng, successively submitted their cases to the Supreme Court, demanding judicial fairness and calling for the protection of human rights. Newspapers around the world also carried huge headlines with the headlines of the top eye-catching big characters, believing that the sentence was improper. Kong Xiangxi, who was in the United States at the time, also asked the US ambassador to China, Hurley, to intercede with Chiang Kai-shek.
Under pressure from many parties, on July 20, 1945, the Chongqing Experimental District Court forwarded the entire case file to the Supreme Court. On August 21, the First Branch of the Supreme People's Court returned the case to the Chongqing Experimental District Court for further trial.
The president of the court, Zha Liangjian, did not belong to any party and did not want to get involved in partisan disputes, so he transferred the case to Li Maoxuan for handling. Later, when he saw Li Mao pronounce Gao Bingfang's death sentence, he was deeply disturbed, so he made Li Jianfu, who was also not of any faction, the presiding judge during the retrial.
After Li Jianfu took over, he found that the alleged materials were all forgeries, and he was extremely sympathetic to Gao Bingfang. But if he is acquitted, it is to be unable to live with the CC department, especially with Chiang Kai-shek. Later, he wanted to list one or two crimes for Gao Bingfang and sentence him to seven or eight years in prison. But cc insisted on the maximum sentence. Forced by the obscenity of the CC department, Li Jianfu finally gave in. On January 29, 1946, the court rendered a judgment: "Gao Bingfang has continuously punished the competent affairs for profit, sentenced to life imprisonment, deprivation of public power for life, and the rest of the crime." ”
After the second-instance judgment, Gao Bingfang appealed to the Supreme Court, which accepted it and upheld the original judgment of the Chongqing court. In April, the Supreme Court approved the judgment.
On May 10, 1946, Gao Bingfang was transferred from the court detention center to The Second Prison of Sichuan Province in Shibanpo, Chongqing, where he was imprisoned and served his sentence.
After years, the sensational Gao Bingfang "embezzlement case" was thus finalized.
▲Gao Bingfang's life in prison, Innovation Monthly, 1948, [No. 19, p. 5 ]
On June 20, the National Daily published a report by reporter Tian Maode's "Visit to Gao Bingfang", in which he wrote that when the reporter did not enter prison, he first saw a couplet of Gao Bingfang's handwritten letters pasted on the wall: "What is the promised land in the chaotic years of the world, and the hell on earth is heaven", and the horizontal criticism is "asking for more blessings for oneself.". In just twenty words, he expressed his helplessness and disappointment in the cold state of the world.
In late November 1949, the court formally notified Gao Bingfang of his release from prison. On the afternoon of November 25, Gao Bingfang returned to his original dormitory on Corning Road, and since then he has truly regained his freedom. Five days later, Chongqing was liberated.
In June 1950, Gao Bingfang received a telegram from the Central and Southern District Financial and Economic Committee, sending him as the Central and Southern Tax Commissioner, and in July he went to Hankou to take up his post at the Central and Southern Taxation Administration.
In the same month, the Taxation Administration publicly declared on the home page of the inaugural issue of the internal bulletin "Zhongnan Taxation": "Mr. Gao Bingfang is the founder of China's direct taxation, advocating the new spirit of the new tax newcomer, and was framed by the Kuomintang reactionaries until liberation, and he was released from prison and retired to Xiang Province." This time, he was specially hired by the Central and Southern Finance Commission and came to the bureau on July 1 to help with taxation. The "gao bingfang" embezzlement case was finally determined by New China as an unjust case. According to legend, Gao Bingfang held the "Zhongnan Taxation" and his eyes stayed on the announcement for a long time, and only then did he say with excited and trembling words: "The parents of those who gave birth to me, and those who know me are the Communist Party!" ”[4]
In September 1954, Gao Bingfang was reappointed as counselor and tax commissioner of the Hunan Provincial People's Committee until his retirement. On July 1, 1970, Gao Bingfang died of illness and was buried with his wife, Ms. Tang Yun, in Shimen Cemetery on the outskirts of Wuhan at the age of 80.
Notes:
[1] Zhang Jun: Deciphering the Important Cases of the Republic of China, Anhui Literature and Art Publishing House, 2013, p. 78.
[2] Tan Zisheng and Zhang Miao, "Gao Bingfang and China's Direct Tax", edited by the Literature and History Materials Committee of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference, Chinese Literature and History Archive, China Literature and History Publishing House, 1996, p. 500.
[3] Tan Zisheng and Zhang Miao, Gao Bingfang and China's Direct Tax, Chinese Literature and History Archive, p. 505.
[4] Tan Zisheng and Zhang Miao, Gao Bingfang and China's Direct Tax, Chinese Literature and History Archive, p. 505.