When the Saintess Arrives, No King Exist-Chapter 632 - 593: Constitutional Convention (Lower-Lower)
"First of all, within this 170,000 gold pounds, Great Monarch Norn's 27,000 gold pounds, I can only pay back the interest of 7,000 gold pounds and defer the rest for about half a year.
This year, due to consecutive wars and the destruction caused by Prince Kongdai's lancer regiment and Puzilio, there will definitely be a reduction in grain production, which will lead to a certain degree of money shortage.
Among the nine counties in Thousand River Valley, perhaps only Langsande County did not delay the spring plowing and can receive full taxes.
According to the previous agreement, the taxes from Langsande County are entirely for the Shepherd Leader, and in order to restore agriculture next year, taxes and rents must be reduced this year.
So the taxes from the remaining eight counties might have to be halved, which is about 60,000 gold pounds, leaving a gap of 90,000 gold pounds. His Highness the Shepherd Leader and Lady Catherine are willing to each take out 10,000 gold pounds to fill the gap.
The remaining 70,000 gold pounds, I won't ask for your donations or taxes; I will auction off a part of the church property and fill the gap with the gold pounds stored by the Church.
But in exchange, you must cooperate with the local county governors and priests-in-charge."
Upon hearing that they didn't have to pay out of their own pockets, the right seat representatives all breathed a sigh of relief, but Clovin had a vague sense of something wrong. He immediately stood up and asked: "Cooperate with the county governor's work, it's not about conducting land registration, is it?"
"No, it's a population survey. Once the population is confirmed, it will be organized into Hundred Households District for tax reform, aiming to obtain sufficient and stable fiscal revenue."
"To have sufficient tax revenue, the first is to expand the tax base, and the second is to reduce waste." Horn raised two fingers, "Expanding the tax base requires a considerable amount of time to develop. The Hundred Households District tax system reform does is reduce the number of tax chains and shorten their length."
According to the current situation in Thousand River Valley, there are mainly three tax chains.
The first is the kingdom's taxation system, where farmers and tenant farmers pay rent and labor to the steward, manor head, or minor lord, the lower landlords submit tribute, exemption tax, war tax, and share tax to the great lord, and the great lord pays the king.
The second is the church's taxation system, which is merely replacing the steward with bishops at various levels, along with selling indulgences.
The third is the urban taxation system, where the royal family or the church assigns taxes to the city every year, and then the city internally assigns them to various guilds, and guilds internally continue to assign them to artisans and citizens.
Due to too many links in these three tax chains, and internal disunity, each link is filled with corruption and interception, causing a large amount of tax waste in meaningless internal consumption.
For central taxation, and especially for the great lord's taxation, it is basically based on head tax, while the minor lord's manor is often based on land tax.
For minor lords, who live in the manor and go nowhere, they know exactly how much land there is, and taxing by land is very convenient.
For great lords, the number of lands is not transparent; they cannot visit each manor to measure the land on-site, and the definition of land production is an unsolvable problem.
Land is hard to measure, but heads are easy to count.
So they charge tribute from minor lords based on the number of adult males in their territory, while concealing the population and amount of directly controlled land from higher lords.
Horn truly was a farmer; he paid rent of 50 dinars to Barnett and Durdafer and had to pay an additional head tax of 5 dinars.
This head tax, in theory, was what the superior lord demanded from the subordinate lord, so it changed every year.
The problem is Horn couldn't run to the superior lord and ask: how much head tax did you charge this year?
Although the church has land tax ledgers, superior lords can't cross systems to trace church tax records, and local bishops and lower lords share common interests.
So lower lords and minor bishops can precisely cut farmers, and then be precisely cut by foreign merchants.
Because their manor outputs are scattered, if they don't sell, others will, and well-connected foreign merchants can depress prices to the extreme.
Nobles exchange these manor outputs for precious metal currency, then make large purchases of luxury goods and maintain their status and 'dignity.'
Of course, when this money reaches great lords, it's also spent on silk, jewelry, female slaves, living lavishly, and building palaces.
Falan Kingdom became rich by accurately cutting noble lords through cooperation with merchants and cities.
Compared to total darkness among nobles, the church is merely corrupt and embezzling.
Although the church cannot audit accounts above its level, it can audit to the next level, so the church can collect far more taxes in Thousand River Valley than the kingdom.
"So the significance of the population survey and Hundred Households District is for me to take over and sort out the church's taxation system, then replace these three tax chains with the tax system of the Holy Machinery Court Order.
Specifically, for example, organizing a manor into a Hundred Households District, with a knight or steward serving as the Hundred Households Captain, pre-disaster showing three-tenths land rent income of 30 gold pounds.
The requirement is that rent and taxes must not exceed three-tenths and five, so it's two-tenths and five land rent 25 gold pounds, while church ledgers show last year 5 gold pounds were charged as head tax for the superior lord.
Meanwhile, the knight must either pass assessment to join the Autocratic Duke's army or pay an annual service exemption tax of 5 gold pounds.
Thus, this knight must pay 20 gold pounds to the Priestly Order, retaining 15 gold pounds for themselves.
If there's no knight, and it's church-owned public property or Armed Farmers, the Hundred Households District elects a Hundred Households Captain on their own, but land rent is not collected, instead adding a proportional head tax and service exemption tax on top of the tithing.
A Priestly Order with 70 Hundred Households Districts means 1,400 gold pounds, with 20% retained as grassroots administrative expenses, the remaining 80%, about 1,100 gold pounds, delivered to the county governor.
Take Kasha County as an example; ideally, without considering municipal taxes, it can still receive 25,000 gold pounds in income."
Great lords bowed their heads and calculated, soon showing smiles and applauding and bowing towards Horn.
Because if this method is applied, the knights will no longer be able to layer hidden reports on population and land, allowing them to obtain more income than before!
And with this method, they won't have to patrol and send envoys to monitor yearly, eliminating overlapping expenditures with the church's functions and saving a large sum of money.
The knight representatives of the right seat, especially the minor nobles of Pingyuan County, looked as if the sky had fallen.
The Mountain Knights have defaulted to joining Moliat's army, but they haven't, meaning their income has drastically reduced by nearly half.
"Your Highness the Despot, this cannot work; our expenses are too great, although we don't have to go to the battlefield anymore, but how are we supposed to live on 15 gold pounds?" 𝑓𝘳𝘦𝑒𝑤𝑒𝘣𝘯ℴ𝘷𝘦𝓁.𝑐𝑜𝑚
"Yes, Your Eminence, you can't live on 15 gold pounds!"
"Don't talk nonsense." Moliat glared at them, "His Highness the Shepherd Leader just gave me a report the day before yesterday, showing you spend only 40-50% of your income on household expenses, only 10% on warhorses and equipment purchases, which I've exempted, the remaining 40% are all abnormal expenses.
A knight with an annual income of 20 gold pounds spends 8 gold pounds a year on spices, fine clothes, high-end furniture, porcelain, and various knick-knacks."
"Those are works of art..." A little knight bowed his head low and couldn't help but complain.
"You mean I can't eat delicacies?" Moliat's iron fist slammed heavily on the table, "I told you, I'm just a boar! Gold pounds need to be spent where it counts!
For the next three years, all these items will have an additional 10% tariff. I will lead the charge in rejecting luxury and waste. All who meet with me are forbidden from wearing silk clothes!"
"And what about the income of us counts? Your Highness, you haven't mentioned the allocation of the head tax." During the lamentations, a knight shouted from among the right seat representatives.
Moliat's gaze swept over, "You have two choices: first, come to Xia Lvcheng, where I will distribute annuities to you based on the head tax, second, stay local and receive a commercial and industrial tax exemption equivalent to the head tax."
"Ah?" The previously smiling great lords were immediately stunned, "Isn't it distributed directly to us?"
"The fewer the steps tax money goes through, the better. If it's sent to the county governor's hands and then distributed to you, it will cause a lot of loss and waste."
"But..."
"But what? You weren't receiving this much tax before, and you still aren't willing even when it's given to you for free?" Moliat pulled out a list from the paper, "I only want the land on the church tax accounts, I don't want the estates and populations you hide outside the church tax system, that's merciful enough."
The complaints from noble ranks were swallowed back down while representatives from the middle section started celebrating, hugging, and cheering.
However, amidst the cheers, noise came again from among the representatives, and this time it was not from others but from Moliat's Titled Knight, Herman.
"His Highness the Shepherd Leader's vision is indeed commendable." Herman's voice was slow, suppressing everyone else's discussions or cheers, "But the problem lies in the fact that many nobles and knights locally are not listening to us. How do you plan to enforce this?"
