God of Technology: Creating the Internet in Another World-Chapter 337: How Do We Tax This?!

Even the weakest, least reputable, longest profit-cycle company—the Foster Iron Mine Company—was still seeing its stock price climb.

It probably wouldn’t be long before these major companies’ stock prices rose to the point where only wealthy families, nobles, big merchants, and churches could afford them. Regular folks would either cash out during this big rally and make a killing, or they’d just keep holding.

This was what Viscount Roster wanted to see. And the reason Viscount Roster wanted to see it was because Ren wanted to see it!

This was what the world needed to face before the magic-tech industrial age arrived.

3 PM.

Gray Fort Empire.

Inside a church.

The Popes and Shepherds from various churches had been camping out here for six hours.

Several Popes’ faces were full of excitement.

"The Golden Merchant Guild closed at 7 gold coins today. Just the circulating shares alone are worth 7 million gold coins, making the entire guild worth 28 million gold coins. Gotta say, when the elves make a move, they really shake things up!"

Just as one Pope was expressing his amazement, another Pope shook his head slightly. "I think this price still isn’t high enough. Even in our Gray Fort Empire, most lords have already joined the Golden Merchant Guild’s trading system."

"Let’s be real—across the entire continent right now, how many nobles haven’t joined the Golden Merchant Guild’s trading system?"

"You could say the Golden Merchant Guild is basically a profit alliance formed by all the nobles. For an alliance like that, a price under 30 million gold coins is still too low. I think tomorrow we should keep buying it up. At the very least, we should push the Golden Merchant Guild’s value up to 80 million gold coins."

"80 million gold coins?!"

The moment those words came out, even these church Popes’ faces changed slightly, and quite a few gasped out loud.

Not every church was loaded.

A lot of churches could probably empty their entire treasury and still not scrape together 1 million gold coins.

But thinking it over carefully, they had to admit the analysis made sense.

"If we really push it up to 80 million gold coins, wouldn’t that mean pushing the price per share up to 20 gold coins? Seems like most investors wouldn’t be able to handle that, right?"

"Why should most investors be able to handle it? This was always a game for us church powers and the nobles. Once it hits 20 gold coins, we make ten times our money and cash out, leaving the Golden Merchant Guild to them."

"What about the other stocks? Honestly, I’m more bullish on the Roster Territory Group Company. The Church of Technology’s biggest supporter and promoter in the mortal realm is them. As long as they keep rolling out all kinds of Magic Conductors, I think they’ve got the most potential. Even the Golden Merchant Guild has to kiss up to them."

While they were discussing all this, in the palace not far away.

The Gray Fort Emperor looked at the Magic Net in front of him, his expression neither sad nor happy.

And at the long table before him sat not just himself.

"Tricky Coin" Al was also there nearby.

"So what you’re saying is, the 1 million gold coins I gave you has now turned into 4.5 million gold coins?" After a long silence, the Gray Fort Emperor finally spoke.

"Y-yes."

"Tricky Coin" Al nodded firmly. "If we sell first thing tomorrow morning, yes. But I think there’s still room for growth. We should be able to... push the value of these stocks up to 10 million gold coins."

"That’s not important." But the Gray Fort Emperor shook his head. "I gave you this money to develop the magic-tech industry in the first place. I don’t care how you use it. What I want is for our Gray Fort Empire’s magic-tech industry to be established. Ideally, we’d be able to bypass those Roster Territory people and communicate directly with the God of Technology."

"Tricky Coin" Al froze for a moment, then nodded. "I understand. I’ll do my best to handle things well."

"Do you know what I was just thinking about?" The Gray Fort Emperor looked at this reformer who had once transformed the entire empire alongside him and asked this seemingly random question.

"Tricky Coin" Al was clearly stunned. Wasn’t he thinking about the stock market?

Wasn’t he thinking about how they’d made so much money in just one day?!

No, if he was asking like this, he definitely wasn’t thinking about that. But what then?

"Tricky Coin" Al really had no clue, so he shook his head slightly. "I don’t know."

"I was thinking about what the real purpose of this market is, and also, when we know those investors, those nobles, can go wild in this market and rake in cash like crazy—how do we tax them?"

The Gray Fort Emperor didn’t keep him in suspense and directly stated his thoughts.

How much money could you rake in from the stock market?

Was there really no risk?!

From the moment he’d seen the stock market rules, he’d thought of many things.

As a strong and capable ruler who had completed internal reforms during the empire’s prosperous period, he was extremely sensitive to many things.

He knew that before long, this stock market would see a series of risks.

This wasn’t what he wanted.

As the owner of an empire, what he needed was stability.

"Tax... tax them?!" "Tricky Coin" Al swallowed hard, and for a moment, he didn’t know what to say or how to say it.

Much less how to do it!

He’d never thought about this. What he’d been thinking about most was getting his own company listed.

But thinking about it carefully, it really did make sense. Just in these two days, the trading volume on the stock market had reached about 50 million gold coins. Most countries, running for a whole year, wouldn’t see transactions on this scale.

Of those gold coins, at least 15 million, maybe even 20 million, were traded within the Gray Fort Empire. If they could extract a portion of those funds as tax revenue, it would be an enormous source of income for the empire.

It might even directly become the number one tax source.

But how would they collect it?

They weren’t the owners of the Dragon Stock Market.

There was a lot of information they didn’t have access to.

They couldn’t figure out how to ensure they knew everyone’s trading amount or profit amount.

And even if they could determine it, could they actually collect that portion?

Would those nobles, those churches, just have their proxies do the trading and leave the Gray Fort Empire entirely?

That wasn’t impossible.

Or maybe they shouldn’t go after these nobles, but go directly after the companies instead?

That would mean any Gray Fort Empire listed company that got money from the stock market would need to pay taxes.

That method of collection would definitely be more convenient and accurate, but it wouldn’t quite achieve the desired effect. Plus, it would directly impact "Tricky Coin" Al’s own company’s future.

How was he supposed to bring that up?

An atmosphere of confusion filled the palace. For a moment, the two of them—ruler and minister—just stared at each other, not knowing what to say.

"Forget it, let’s not think about that for now. How’s the progress on listing your factory?"