Chapter 33 Effects of the Right to Free Trade
The city lord's mansion was still brightly lit late at night.
Although the busiest autumn harvest has just ended, as the city lord of Bangta City, Earl Stark has no less work.
Unlike the previous Earl of Summer who liked to delegate power and let his subordinates do things, Earl Stark prefers to hold all the power in his own hands, and he makes decisions about big and small things.
He likes the feeling of being in control.
However, the price paid for this was that he was much busier than Earl Summer.
He had just ended a small meeting. After he returned to his office in the City Lord's Mansion, he didn't take a break at all and began to approve official documents.
Because of the outstanding achievements in this year's autumn harvest, Bangta City has been praised by His Majesty the King and the Agriculture Department, and Earl Stark has been specially commended by the Kingdom Council. Neidu's reputation has soared, and it has become another political star in the Stark family.
But Earl Stark himself knew very well how much water and even more falsehood his results contained.
So in order to keep this matter from leaking, he must spend a lot of time and energy on the aftermath.
Because he is also very clear, although the family and the family's allies pushed him to this position and let him replace the Earl of Summer as the Lord of a city, but how important the burden he bears is, and those who are opposed to the family are others. In the family, there are countless pairs of eyes staring at him, as long as he dares to make a little mistake, he will be greeted by a storm.
Before departure, the family patriarch. Duke Stark, who is also his eldest brother, told him clearly. If he doesn't handle things well here. If something goes wrong, when necessary, the family will definitely throw him out as a victim.
So Earl Stark acted extremely strong after arriving in Bonta City, just to ensure that he could make a satisfactory result for the family behind him and those allies, and at the same time to stop the mouths of those who questioned.
Of course, the premise is that there are no mistakes.
There are many key aspects of these aftermath work that cannot be done by others, and must be handled by Count Stark himself.
Fortunately, the family also gave him a lot of support in this regard.
For example, the data reported by Bangta City is obviously watery. However, due to the family's control over the Agricultural Department, the Agricultural Department did not conduct an exact and detailed assessment of this data at all. It just went through the motions and approved the data, which made this data appear extremely high among all the cities in the Lampari Kingdom. Bright.
With this data, not only did Earl Stark's reputation soar, but in the Kingdom Council, the faction that insisted on agriculture, headed by the Stark family, also gained the upper hand.
When arguing, this faction cites the grain production figures for the city of Bangta as the most favourable example.
Because according to the calculation of the Agriculture Department, as long as the policy currently implemented in Bangta City is followed. If it is promoted in all cities in the kingdom, the food production of the entire kingdom will be greatly improved.
If they can reach the level of Bangta City. Then it only takes three to five years for the entire Kingdom of Lampari to completely get rid of the famine, and even save some food every year.
Everyone must admit that the most important factor in maintaining the stability of a country is to feed the people of the country.
As long as the people can survive, there will be no more turmoil in the Kingdom of Lampari like it was ten years ago.
And as long as there is no turmoil in the Lampari Kingdom, it will naturally become stronger if it continues to recuperate.
This is the accepted truth on the Sainz Continent, so the other faction that opposes the Stark family has no arguments to refute for the time being.
Even His Majesty the King agreed with the Stark family's point of view, but made some reservations and did not really state that agricultural development should be the first factor.
And contrary to everyone's expectations, just a few days ago, the Lampari Kingdom Commercial Office suddenly announced a new resolution, expressing that in order to promote business development in the Lampari Kingdom, it was decided to give some recognized chambers of commerce in the kingdom freedom. Commercial rights.
The significance of this right to free trade is to allow these chambers of commerce that have obtained the right to free trade with other countries to conduct commercial trade freely without special reporting to the Commerce Department and the Kingdom Council, so that these chambers of commerce can conduct commercial trade with other countries. Taking a more flexible approach can also save a lot of time.
Of course, the commodities to be traded must not be on the trade list prohibited by the kingdom, and the gains from trade also need to be taxed to the kingdom.
Because the taxation standards of various cities in the kingdom are different, for convenience, the tax that these chambers of commerce that have obtained the right to trade freely with other countries will be directly turned over to the kingdom's finances, and will not be included in any city in the kingdom.
As soon as this policy came out, everyone understood that this was His Majesty the King seeking a solution to the kingdom's financial difficulties, trying to collect a portion of the city's finances from all over the kingdom to flood the kingdom's finances.
However, the commerce in the Kingdom of Lampari is not very developed, and there are only a handful of chambers of commerce that can conduct commercial trade with other countries, so this policy actually has no impact on the vast majority of chambers of commerce and cities in the kingdom. Naturally There was not much opposition and backlash.
On this list of chambers of commerce that have obtained the right to free trade, the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce is on the list.
Earl Stark, who was the lord of Bangta City at first, didn't pay much attention to this, because he knew very well that Xu Yi had always had a close relationship with Her Royal Highness Princess Sevigny, and the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce was also highly regarded by Her Royal Highness and even Her Majesty the King. It is also a matter of course that the FCA obtains the right to free trade through this relationship.
However, when Earl Stark liquidated the financial income of Bangta City under the reminder of his staff, he was surprised to find that the New Flying Chamber of Commerce had obtained the right to free trade, but it had a great impact on Bangta City.
According to the financial statistics of Bangta City’s tax revenue made by the City Lord’s Office Affairs Officer, in the past two years or so, the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce started to pay only a few hundred gold coins per month in taxes. has been in a state of rapid growth.
within this year. The tax paid by the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce each month exceeds 200,000 gold coins. The tax paid in June even reached an astonishing 430,000 gold coins, even surpassing several old-fashioned large chambers of commerce in Bangta City, accounting for an extremely considerable proportion of Bangta City's entire fiscal revenue.
Since July, the tax paid by the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce has plummeted. In July, it has changed from 430,000 gold coins in June to 260,000 gold coins, and in August it has dropped to 190,000 gold coins. Month and October are barely more than 100,000 gold coins.
Are new pilots doing tax evasion? This is of course impossible.
The reason why this happens is that the New Flying Chamber of Commerce is under the pressure of Earl Stark. Almost all of his business has been relocated to the Falling Rain Valley.
And because His Majesty the King assigned the Falling Rain Valley and the surrounding land to Xu Yi as his viscount territory, according to the regulations of the Kingdom's Noble Council, any income from the private domain of the nobility belongs to the nobility, and the nobility only needs to Paying certain taxes to the kingdom's finances is not responsible to anyone else in the kingdom.
Therefore, after the New Flying Chamber of Commerce moved to the Falling Rain Valley, except for some of the business achieved through Bangta City, most of the other income no longer needs to pay taxes to Bangta City.
Now that the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce has obtained the right to free trade, then according to the interpretation of the right of free trade by the Commerce Department, the income tax generated by the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce and other countries and regions on the mainland will also be directly handed over to the kingdom's finance, state Tacheng is also not qualified to intervene.
So to sum up. It has become the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce. Although it is still the Chamber of Commerce in Bangta City in name, only the product service center and the new concept modern life magic house of the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce in Bangta City need to pay taxes to Bangta City. Any other business does not need to pay attention to the City Lord Mansion of Bangta City.
The speed of development of the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce is obvious to all. Recently, it has reached a large number of business cooperation with the Ruelson Kingdom and the Principality of Standing, and even cooperates with the orcs on the Black Rice Wasteland.
If nothing else, the future development of Xinfei Chamber of Commerce will only get faster and more profitable.
Correspondingly, Bangta City is also missing a very important, and increasingly important tax.
Although Earl Stark implemented the policy of suppressing business and promoting agriculture, he actually knew very well in his heart that for Bangta City, most of the taxes were paid by the major chambers of commerce. If it was not a matter of position, he served as Bangta City. After becoming the city lord, he will definitely continue to vigorously develop commerce and take into account agriculture like the previous Earl of Summer.
However, now, because of his own position and the help of the Stark family and his allies, he forced the New Flying Chamber of Commerce out of Bangta City, so this bitter fruit planted by him can only be borne by him. .
In addition to the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce, there are also many Chambers of Commerce in Bangta City that have lost confidence in Bangta City because of the policy of suppressing business and promoting agriculture. Some chambers of commerce continue to withdraw from Bangta City to other cities. The Chamber of Commerce, like several other large chambers of commerce, followed the footsteps of the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce and went to the Black Rice Wasteland, the Kingdom of Ruerson, and the Duchy of Standing to invest.
Among the first batch of chambers of commerce that have obtained free trade rights announced by the Commerce Department, in addition to the Xinfei Chamber of Commerce in Bangta City, the Amli Chamber of Commerce, the Armani Chamber of Commerce, and the Saranque Chamber of Commerce are also included.
Earl Stark asked his staff to make a general statistics on the business of these chambers of commerce, and finally came to a conclusion.
The Xinfei Chamber of Commerce withdrew from Bangta City, which reduced the monthly tax income of Bangta City by 300,000 gold coins. Now that these four chambers of commerce have obtained the right to free trade, the tax revenue of Bangta City may be reduced again. Minimum 200,000 gold coins.
Last month, the total land tax income of Bangta City just exceeded 500,000 gold coins, which means that it has lost half of it directly. The blow is undoubtedly extremely heavy.
The current Bangta City is almost equivalent to returning to a few years ago, and can no longer be called the fastest growing city in the Lampari Kingdom.
More importantly, the massive reduction in taxation proves that Bonta City has actually regressed considerably under the governance of Earl Stark, which is a heavy blow to the conservatives headed by the Stark family.
So while Count Stark is dealing with the aftermath of the autumn harvest, he is also racking his brains on how to increase the tax revenue of Bonta City to avoid this situation.
The busy work continued, but at this moment, Count Stark shrank his eyes suddenly when he saw the next official document. (To be continued..)