landbeastnovel #597 - Constitutional Convention (Part 2)
#597 - Constitutional Convention (Part 2)
"First, of the 170,000 gold pounds, I can defer the 27,000 gold pounds from Grand Duke Norm, only paying the 7,000 gold pounds in interest for another six months or so.
And this year, due to continuous wars, coupled with the destruction caused by Prince Condé's lancers and Putzrio, grain production will inevitably decrease, leading to a certain degree of financial shortage.
Among the nine counties of Thousand River Valley, I'm afraid only Langsande County has not been delayed in its spring plowing and will be able to collect the full amount of taxes.
According to the previous agreement, the tax revenue from Langsande County belongs entirely to the Patriarch, and in order to restore agriculture next year, taxes and rents must be reduced this year.
Therefore, the tax revenue from the remaining eight counties may be halved, which is about 60,000 gold pounds, leaving a shortfall of 90,000 gold pounds. His Holiness the Patriarch and Lady Catherine are willing to contribute 10,000 gold pounds each to fill the gap.
For the remaining 70,000 gold pounds, I don't want your donations or taxes. I will auction off some of the Church's property and use the gold pounds stored in the Church to fill the gap.
But in exchange, you must cooperate with the work of the local county heads and priests."
Hearing that they didn't have to pay out of their own pockets, the representatives on the right breathed a sigh of relief, but Clowen vaguely felt that something was wrong. He immediately stood up and asked, "Cooperate with the county head's work, does that mean land registration?"
"No, it's a population survey. After determining the population, it will be organized into hundred-household districts for tax reform, in order to obtain sufficient and stable financial income."
"To have sufficient tax revenue, the first is to expand the tax base, and the second is to reduce waste." Horn held up two fingers. "Expanding the tax base requires a considerable amount of time to develop. What the hundred-household district tax system reform does is reduce the number and shorten the length of tax collection chains."
According to the current situation in Thousand River Valley, there are mainly three tax collection chains.
The first is the kingdom system tax collection: farmers and tenant farmers pay land rent and corvée labor to stewards, estate managers, or small lords; lower-level landlords pay tribute, exemption tax, war tax, and share tax to large lords; and large lords pay to the king.
The second is the church system tax collection, which is simply replacing the steward with bishops of various levels and, by the way, selling indulgences.
The third is the city system tax collection: the royal family or the church assigns taxes to the cities every year, and then the cities assign them to various guilds, and the guilds continue to assign them to craftsmen and citizens.
Because there are too many links in the three tax collection chains, and they are not unified internally, each link is full of corruption and interception, and a large amount of tax revenue is wasted in meaningless internal friction.
For central tax revenue, especially the tax revenue of large lords, it is basically based on poll tax, while the manors of small lords are often based on land tax.
For small lords, they live in the manor and don't go anywhere. They know exactly how much land there is, and it is very convenient to collect taxes based on the land.
For large lords, the amount of land is not transparent. They cannot run to each manor to measure it on the spot, and the definition of land yield is an unsolvable problem.
Land is difficult to measure, but heads are easy to count.
Therefore, they demand tribute from small lords based on the number of adult men in their territory, while concealing the population and the amount of land in their directly managed manors from higher-level lords.
Horn had really been a farmer. At that time, he paid Barnett and Duldaffer 50 dinars in land rent, plus an extra 5 dinars in poll tax.
This poll tax, in theory, is what the higher-level lord demands from the lower-level lord, so it changes every year.
But the problem is that Horn cannot run to the higher-level lord to ask: How much poll tax did you collect this year?
Although the church has land tax ledgers, higher-level lords cannot cross-system to investigate church tax ledgers, and local bishops and lower-level lords have aligned interests.
Therefore, lower-level lords and small bishops can accurately harvest farmers, and then be accurately harvested by foreign merchants.
Because their manor outputs are scattered, if you don't sell, others will. Foreign merchants with backgrounds can push the price to the limit.
Nobles use these manor outputs to exchange for precious metal currencies, and then buy a large number of luxury goods and "decent" things to maintain their status.
Of course, the money that reaches the hands of the great lords is also used to buy silk, jewelry, and female slaves, spending lavishly and building palaces.
The Kingdom of France became rich by cooperating with merchants and cities to accurately harvest noble lords.
Compared to the nobles, who are full of darkness, the church is only corrupt and greedy.
Although the church cannot investigate accounts across levels, it is still feasible to investigate accounts only one level down, so the church can collect far more taxes in Thousand River Valley than the royal family.
"So the significance of the population survey and the hundred-household district is that I will take over and sort out the church's tax system, and then replace these three tax collection chains with the Holy See's tax system.
Specifically, for example, a manor is organized into a hundred-household district, and a knight or steward serves as the head of the hundred households. Before the disaster, the land rent income was 30 gold pounds.
The requirement is that the sum of rent and tax should not exceed 35%, so it is 25% of the land rent, which is 25 gold pounds. At the same time, the church's ledger shows that 5 gold pounds were collected last year for the poll tax of the superior lord.
At the same time, the knight must either pass the assessment to join the Autarch's army, or pay an exemption tax of 5 gold pounds every year.
Then the knight must pay 20 gold pounds to the priest's abbey, and can retain 15 gold pounds for himself.
If there is no knight, it is the church's public property or armed farmers, then the hundred-household district will elect its own head, but no land rent will be collected. On the basis of the tithe, a proportional poll tax and exemption tax will be added.
Assuming a priest's abbey has 70 hundred-household districts, that is 1400 gold pounds, retaining 20% as basic administrative expenses, and the remaining 80%, about 1100 gold pounds, will be sent to the county head.
Taking Kasha County as an example, in an ideal situation, it can obtain an income of 25,000 gold pounds without municipal tax."
The great lords lowered their heads and calculated, and soon they all showed smiles, even clapping and bowing to Horn.
Because if this method is followed, the knights will not be able to hide the population and land layer by layer, and they will be able to obtain more income than before!
Moreover, with this method, there is no need to inspect every year and send envoys to monitor everywhere, eliminating the expenses that overlap with the church's functions, saving a lot of expenditure.
The knight representatives on the right, especially the small nobles of the Plain County, felt as if the sky had fallen.
The mountain knights are defaulted to join Mollietti's army, but they are not, which means that their income has been sharply reduced by nearly half.
"Your Highness the Autarch, this can't be done, our expenses are too high. Although we don't have to go to the battlefield anymore, how can we live on 15 gold pounds?"
"Yes, Your Majesty, 15 gold pounds is not enough to live on!"
"Stop talking nonsense." Mollietti glared at them. "His Holiness the Patriarch just gave me an investigation report the day before yesterday, showing that only 40% to 50% of your income is used for household expenses, only 10% is used for war horses and purchasing equipment, and I have exempted it. The remaining 40% is all abnormal expenses.
A knight with an annual income of 20 gold pounds spends 8 gold pounds every year to buy spices, fancy clothes, high-end furniture, porcelain, and miscellaneous gadgets."
"Those are works of art..." A small knight buried his head low and couldn't help but complain.
"You mean I'm a hillbilly who can't appreciate fine food?" Mollietti's iron fist slammed heavily on the table. "I'm telling you, I'm just a hillbilly! Gold pounds must be used wisely!
In the next three years, all tariffs on these things will be increased by 10%. I will take the lead in rejecting extravagance and waste. No one who meets with me is allowed to wear silk clothes!"
"What about the income of us earls? Your Highness, you didn't say where the poll tax is going." Amidst the wailing, a knight in the right seat shouted.
Mollietti's gaze swept over: "You have two choices. First, come to Green City, and I will give you an annuity according to the poll tax. Second, stay in the local area and get a tax exemption equal to the poll tax for industry and commerce."
"Ah?" The great lords who were smiling just now were instantly shocked. "Isn't it going to be sent to us?"
"The fewer links the tax money goes through, the better. Sending it to the county head and then sending it to you will cause a lot of loss and waste."
"But..."
"But what? You couldn't collect that much tax in the first place. You're not happy even if I give it to you for nothing?" Mollietti pulled out a list from the paper. "I only want the fields on the church's tax ledgers. I don't want the manors and populations you hide outside the church's tax system. That's merciful enough."
The complaining remarks of the large and small nobles were immediately swallowed back into their stomachs. On the contrary, the representatives in the middle seat began to celebrate and embrace each other.
However, amidst the cheers, discordant voices came from the representatives again. This time, it was not someone else, but Mollietti's title knight, Herman.
"His Holiness the Patriarch's idea is certainly good." Herman's voice was slow, drowning out all the discussions or cheers. "But the problem is that there are still many nobles and knights in the local area who don't listen to us. How are you going to implement it?"