In the past 1907, as of February 1908, the three northeastern provinces exported soybeans to the outside world, with a total export volume surged to 1.335 million tons, and the total export volume surged to 1.00 million pounds. Although the average international soybean price fell to 21 pounds per ton due to the surge in soybean export scale of soybeans in the three northeastern provinces, the impact on the best-selling soybeans in the three northeastern provinces was not very important.

Far East Commercial Bank, which almost took over this industry, obtained a net profit of 8.67 million pounds, equivalent to 91 million silver dollars. In addition to the fact that Far East Commercial Bank has set up branches in Europe, the United States and other countries to bypass foreign banks and sells directly to the outside world, Far East Commercial Bank controlled 40,000 yuan through Yufeng Bank, and obtained a special and generous profit through a long-term agreement signed with the military reclamation of the three provinces.

In 1907, Far East Mining Corporation and Far East Steel Corporation mined 13.55 million tons of coal mines. After the European coal shortage in 1900 and the economic crisis in 1903, European and American countries were conservative about their own coal exports and restricted the export tariffs on coal exports, which made the overall supply of coal in the international market tighter. Currently, in Europe, the price of each ton of high-quality coal is 15 kobby per ton, or a ton of high-quality coal is around 1 pound.

Due to the lack of support from major coal mining powers, Asia relied entirely on importing coal from Australia, Britain and France in the early days. The price before 1899 was usually at a scale of 8 taels of silver per ton. After 1900, it surged to 10 taels of silver per ton. Since then, it continued to rise due to the Russo-Japanese War. Prices fell slightly by 1907, but the price remained above 10 taels of silver per ton.

As the world's largest international commodity, even with so many twists and turns, the overall price is still the most stable, and the Far East consortium has obtained a total sales of approximately 133.5 million taels of silver from the UK, Asia and the inner and outer markets, of which about 1/10 of the quantity is supplied to the UK as low-sulfur high-quality thermal coal.

With the rapid and rapid development of the three northeastern provinces, the land prices in some coastal areas of the three northeastern provinces and Shenyang and Changchun also rose rapidly. The land of the Far East Commercial Bank previously held a large amount of real estate and land began to appreciate rapidly. Through selling, leasing real estate, and leasing land, the Far East Commercial Bank also earned huge profits of nearly 10 million Kanto silver dollars in the real estate industry of the three northeastern provinces.

Of course, compared with the main businesses of soybean and coal, other industries, including real estate, seem insignificant. Although the local iron ore mining volume has increased significantly, due to the increase in iron smelting capacity, Far East Steel Corporation is now mainly selling pig iron as its main business, and part of it is sold to Japan and Southeast Asia.

Far East Commercial Bank has a wide business, including finance, real estate, ports, shipping, railways, animal husbandry, textiles, wood, grain, sugar, salt, beans, fur, medicinal materials, coal, iron ore, pig iron, copper, silk, sea goods, etc. Most of the businesses are local to the three northeastern provinces, and export them to the inner city, and purchase tea, hemp, cotton, medicinal materials and other commodities from the inner city, and buy other imported goods from the international market.

The large-scale sales of coal and huge profits slapped the faces of the commercial illiterate Song Biao and the general directors of the Far East Consortium. Facts prove that the views of industry experts and economic experts such as Wu Yangzeng and Ouyang Xi are correct.

After all, Wu Yangzeng was a man in the officialdom. He only took advantage of the new tax in the fourth quarter of the coal industry to be included in the Finance Department of the Governor's Office and wrote a report to Song Biao, demanding that the investment scale of the coal industry be increased within the Far East Consortium, and Ouyang Xi was very disrespectful. He took this opportunity to submit a very detailed argumentation report to Song Biao, using extremely detailed market data and information to demonstrate the development prospects of the coal industry in the three eastern provinces.

Most of the coal mined in the three eastern provinces currently belongs to Jurassic coal and early Shiraki coal. It is characterized by low sulfur content and low ash content, which is completely different from most coal on the market. In particular, it is completely different from Japanese coal. In addition, it is relatively high in calorie value, with wide coverage from lignite to anthracite, and high international market demand. Coal in some areas is also high in quality power anthracite, which can be specially sold to warships and cruise ships.

Japan's coal is mainly bituminous coal. The late Triassic coal is more, and the quality is actually good, but the sulfur content is too high and the mining cost is too high. These are the two main disadvantages of Japan's coal industry. It was a great loss when competing with the coal industry in the three northeastern provinces.

In terms of taxation, the tax rate of the coal industry is much higher than that of the textile industry, and this is true in every country. Even for industrial powers like Britain and France, the relevant taxes of the coal industry account for 1/4 of the national tax revenue. For regions such as the three eastern provinces with abundant coal reserves and underdeveloped industries, it is possible to occupy 1/2 of the total tax revenue.

For Song Biao, who had just educated Ouyang Xi with a long-term concept of development, this was simply the most contempt and slap in the face. He was very shameless, but no one would be unable to get over money. Song Biao could only knock down his teeth and swallow his blood, and then send the report to the Far East Trading Bank for reference by Rong Xingqiao and others.

The Far East Consortium has been competing in the two categories of coal and textile schools. Previously, the textile schools have the advantage. With the tax on the coal industry in the three northeastern provinces soaring to 10,000 taels of silver in the last quarter of 1907, it has accounted for 45% of the annual fiscal revenue of the three provinces.

This is due to the subsequent quarter that major coal mines are put into production on a large scale, and the winter coal consumption and exports have increased significantly. If the current production capacity continues to grow throughout the year, the taxes collected by the three northeastern provinces in the mining sector will further surge.

After carefully reading Ouyang Xi's report, Song Biao was a little embarrassed, but he still called the Research Bureau and asked Ouyang Xi to go to his office.

After waiting for about five minutes, Ouyang Xi, wearing a large black wool coat, hurried over. When he entered the office, he bowed slightly cautiously and said, "Master Zhongtang."

Song Biao was already a Grand Secretary of the Dongge at this time, and he was also a first-rank official without having to add the title of Grand Tutor and Grand Guardian. Naturally, he was the most authentic Zhongtang Master.

Song Biao glanced at Ouyang Xi, asked him to sit down, and said, "I have read your report, which has taught me a lesson. I am worthy of being a talented man who returned from studying in the United States. I admire him."

Ouyang Xi was very surprised. Although he also hoped to gain Song Biao's attention, he had achieved such a goal so smoothly. He was inevitably flattered. This person was Ouyang Geng's nephew, his father was once the Consul General of the Qing Dynasty to the United States. His father died early. Since then, Ouyang Geng has been taking care of him in the United States and supporting him to study in the United States.

Ouyang Xi was nervous, not even knowing whether Song Biao was telling the truth or the slander, so he answered cautiously: "What Master Zhongtang said is a long-term solution, and the subordinates also take this seriously. However, there are many unreasonable aspects in the taxation settings of the three northeastern provinces. If you want to increase taxes as soon as possible, you should develop mining sooner than the textile industry. The reason is very simple, because at present, countries around the world have adopted a conservative trend in coal exports. The tax revenue is very high, and even the UK's tax rate for coal exports is higher than that of the three northeastern provinces. Japan and Germany are obviously heavy taxes, while the United States and France are higher than Britain and lower than Germany. Russia, which is also a major coal exporter, is in the European coal shortage and economic crisis.

Afterwards, higher taxes were also adopted on coal exports. Compared with coal, countries have adopted support and low tax policies for the textile industry, which is comparable to the textile industry of various industrial powers. In addition, my country's textile industry tariffs are too low and cannot protect its own textile industry at all. It started late, and it is difficult to make a big breakthrough in the short term of five or six years. I have studied the 22 textile industry countermeasures implemented by the Far East Commercial Bank. It was indeed very comprehensive, but the expectations were too optimistic. I think there is little hope for the three northeastern provinces to surpass Japan within five years. Even if it is realized, it is not very meaningful and has too little impact on taxation."

Song Biao is now able to listen to Ouyang Xi's persuasion, and continues to invite Ouyang Xi to sit down and pour tea for Ouyang Xi himself, saying: "I invite you here now mainly to ask you about the tax issues in the three northeastern provinces. Do you think there is a problem with the taxes in the three northeastern provinces, or do I think so?"

Ouyang Xi took the teacup handed by Song Biao with gratitude and replied respectfully: "What Master Zhongtang said is that there are indeed many problems with the taxes of the three northeastern provinces. Overall, the three northeastern provinces are almost the lowest tax areas among the major countries in the world, but the standards of mining tax rates and real estate tax rates are roughly equivalent to other countries, especially the real estate tax rates. Because of the design of real estate value-added tax, it is actually second only to Japan and Germany, and is higher than the four northeastern countries of Britain, France, the United States, Russia and Japan. The mining tax is relatively lower than that of Britain, France, America, Russia and Japan. The officials do not know who formulated such a tax rate policy, but overall, the disadvantages are still very obvious.

In areas like the three provinces that are just beginning to develop, they usually adopt higher tax rates on agricultural taxes and lower tax rates on industrial taxes, especially mining and real estate industries, so that the domestic capital enterprises can quickly increase their basic capital. The tax rates on the three northeastern provinces are just the opposite, just like the UK, restricting the merger of commercial real estate through high real estate taxes, and similar to France protecting agricultural development through low agricultural taxes. Of course, I do not think that the design of this tax rate is problematic. Generally, there are pros and cons, and it is difficult to evaluate in detail and absolute terms, but its disadvantages are also inevitable, that is, it restricts the free circulation of commercial land, and almost half of the government's taxes come from mining."

Song Biao nodded slightly and asked, "If you make adjustments, what aspects do you think need to be modified?"

Ouyang Xi said: "The real estate tax should be reduced appropriately, and agricultural tax can be increased appropriately. The current tax policies of the three northeastern provinces are beneficial to farmers and agriculture on the surface, but low agricultural taxes will inevitably lead to two problems. One is the difficulty of transferring agricultural population to industrial population; the other is easy to lead to large-scale land annexation. The ethnic capital industry in the three northeastern provinces is still relatively backward compared to areas like Shanghai, especially for countries like China that lack industrial foundations. With the rapid development of the economy, capital is nothing more than three directions of flow, one is to industrial and commercial land, the other is to agricultural land, and the third is mining. The high taxes of the mining industry and real estate industry will greatly oppress funds to transfer to agricultural land. If the current tax system is further implemented, national capital will gradually flow into agricultural land on a large scale, forming a large landlord class similar to Mexico, which is very unfavorable for the further development of industry and commerce."

Song Biao thought about it and felt that what he said was very reasonable, so he said to Ouyang Xi: "The current tax rate policy in the three northeastern provinces was mainly formulated by me. At the beginning, the formulation of such policies mainly considered two factors: one is that the people are still relatively poor, and they should raise the people, so the agricultural tax naturally has a low income. At the same time, we should also consider that the basis of economic development in the three northeastern provinces is agriculture, such as the cultivation of economic crops such as soybeans and beets, including the development of animal husbandry and forestry.

.This requires small and medium-sized landlords. Rich farmers accumulate capital through agriculture to expand their business scale and increase mechanized planting, which is conducive to promoting new planting technologies. Second, they hope that capital will be transferred to the industrial field as much as possible, rather than like the Shanghai Concession. Large-scale capital is crowded in real estate, and merchants almost make money by speculating on land. As for mining, mining resources do not belong to the government or individuals after all. It is natural to charge higher taxes to the people in the three provinces."

Ouyang Xi replied: "The Lord Zhongtang is sincere in serving the people, and the officials are deeply impressed. It is just that everything is too much. The tax policy should generally conform to the level of economic development. The basic principle is to take from whom. It is currently the three northeastern provinces that actively promote infrastructure construction and increase basic investment in ports, roads, transportation, water conservancy, and canals, including support and investment in the field of education. Since the vast majority of people are agricultural populations, they naturally need to withdraw enough taxes from them to solve these problems. Appropriately increase agricultural tax and related transaction taxes, and restrict large-scale holding of land, which can prevent capital from being crowded into agriculture and avoid

Large-scale merger of land and form a large landlord class. As for the problem of real estate, merchants at one stage are naturally characterized by one stage. In the current environment, there are very few domestic merchants who can compete with foreign capital merchants. Especially in the field of factory establishment, there are roughly only a very small number of domestic merchants with this ability to operate. It is still very important to appropriately reduce taxes in real estate, allow capital to flow into real estate, drive infrastructure development through the development of real estate, increase employment and other tax items, and ensure the diversity of national commercial capital and the ability to grow by themselves."

Song Biao still thought carefully for a while. He knew that the problems Ouyang Xi mentioned were objective. For example, the Far East Commercial Bank has been considering increasing the holdings of agricultural land recently. Rong Xingqiao also discussed with Song Biao about allowing commercial capital to start land reclamation business. He hoped that the Far East Consortium would directly arrange for the Far East Grain and Animal Husbandry Corporation to reclaim wasteland, and directly involve the planting of cash crops such as soybeans and beets on a larger scale.

As for the current yield, the profits of reclaiming wastelands in the three northeastern provinces to plant soybeans, beets, and opening grain and animal husbandry processing plants are higher than those of the textile industry, but this has little to do with taxation, because the textile industry still enjoys more tax preferential policies, and the real reason for the low profitability of the textile industry is the low sales policy of Japanese textile products.

The low-priced sales policy of Japanese textiles is because Japanese products must face competition from German, French and other domestic products, and must adopt cheaper policies, which further squeezes the profit margin of the national textile industry.

The soybean and beet processing industries of grain and animal husbandry processing plants have higher profits, which is also because Japan lacks relevant competitive projects and cannot compete with grain and oil processing plants and sugar factories in the three northeastern provinces. In addition, in the field of equipment, the total investment of the former is relatively lower.

Seeing that Song Biao was silent, Ouyang Xi guessed that Song Biao was still reluctant to adjust the tax rate of agricultural tax, so he proposed separately: "Master Zhongtang, the agricultural tax light policy actually has great benefits, which is beneficial to farmers' wealth increase, and can be quickly expanded to growth in other consumer areas. The problem is how to limit land mergers. I think the step-by-step agricultural tax can be adopted and the direct introduction of policies to limit the total amount of land held by individuals."

Song Biao thought for a while and asked, "Have you considered the issue of large-scale agriculture?"

Ouyang Xi said bluntly: "I do not recommend that China consider American-style large-scale agricultural cultivation, but rather consider more intensive cultivation and small and medium-sized farmers' cultivation. For example, Japan and France have relatively small per capita farmland, and do not support this large-scale agriculture. They impose higher taxes on agricultural products, and at the same time increase high tariffs on foreign agricultural products. This agricultural policy leads to higher prices of domestic agricultural products than the international market. For some special needs, in addition to adopting special preferential policies for raw silk, tea and wood, other agricultural taxes are far higher than those of my country, or even higher than France. It is precisely because of their domestic

The prices of agricultural products remain high, and the probability of foreign agricultural products pouring into the country is high. For example, France's demand for colonial agricultural products, such as Japan's special demand for North Korea and Taiwan's agricultural products. The problems in the three northeastern provinces are relatively complex. We are actually more suitable to learn from the United States' light agricultural tax and encourage agricultural exports, as well as the operating model of large and medium-sized farms. Many issues need to be considered with great caution. The taxation issue may only be adjusted by a few percentage points, and the impact on the national economy will be too complex in the long-term period, especially considering that world trade is becoming closer and closer, and other countries adopt different tax policies."

Song Biao did not agree with Ouyang Xi's view on adjusting agricultural tax, but he still agreed with some of Ouyang Xi's views.

Indeed, tax rates are a very important issue.

The coal tax in the three northeastern provinces accounts for 45% of the annual fiscal revenue of the three provinces, which is a very complicated issue. First of all, the coal industry tax in the three northeastern provinces is too heavy than other industries. On the surface, the coal industry tax in the three northeastern provinces is no different from other countries, but the three northeastern provinces maintain a very low level in agriculture and adopt a large number of preferential policies in the industrial tax, which is almost equivalent to exempting 2/3 of the industrial tax to stimulate the development of the industry.

Although the rapid development of the industry did not provide high taxes, it stimulated the development of the coal industry and supplemented the total tax revenue of the three northeastern provinces from another level.

However, such a tax ratio is definitely problematic, and the entire economic form is definitely problematic. If you want to adjust, you must make large-scale adjustments from the tax policies and tax rates of the three northeastern provinces.

Apart from Ouyang Xi, Song Biao has no real expert in the field of government tax policy. The level of the so-called Russian experts hired from the Russian Taxation Bureau is probably much worse than that of Ouyang Xi.

Since he was invited to come, Song Biao talked with Ouyang Xi about tax issues for a long time, and finally decided to adjust the tax policies and tax rates of the three northeastern provinces.

A tax policy that goes ahead can stimulate economic development. Too much advance will hinder economic development. It was during this conversation that Song Biao gradually realized this simple truth. For example, real estate tax must not be set too high during this period, and it is necessary to stimulate capital flow into the real estate industry.

Considering the level and actual ability of domestic national merchants, the one who is best at trade, real estate, agriculture, and excessive capital flowing into trade means hoarding and speculation, excessive flowing into real estate means bubble, and excessive flowing into agriculture means land annexation.

The best way to truly conform to the direction of capital market flow is free and balanced flow. The market will automatically choose the development direction that is most conducive to the country and the region. The so-called macro-control is to let capital flow in the direction the government hopes.
Chapter completed!