Chapter 712: 401
While Shang Yanwen was busy with the Imperial Tax, he did not forget that there was something he wanted to do.
It was during his time on Flying Wing Star that, combining what he had learned and his past experiences, he designed a number of industries that could be developed for his hometown, as well as the specific strategies for their development.
And now that he had returned, he saw that his hometown had undergone so many changes that many of his previous ideas, far from being ‘designs,’ were closer to ‘wild guesses’ and totally inconsistent with the current situation in the Green Bee Street District.
But he was not discouraged, nor was he in a hurry.
While he was busy with the Imperial Tax, he became even more familiar with the District, which had changed so dramatically, and he investigated many actual situations.
He continually overturned his own plans, using the current state of the District as a blueprint and combining it with reality, he made a fresh start.
…
Meanwhile, he did not neglect his own work.
When accounting for tax affairs, he found that his biggest worry had not come to pass. The Green Bee Street District had a population of 420,000, and in the past year, the total production value of various materials in the district was 390,000 Tax Currency. A large part of that was consumed by the local population.
The value produced, through money and exchange, had become housing, food, furniture appliances, textiles, medical expenses… and had tangibly improved the living standards of the people in the district.
The medical level was not high enough, there was not enough furniture and appliances, the variety of food was not rich enough, the textiles were not fashionable enough, and even the houses constructed in full swing were actually not enough in number, with many people who should have been assigned housing still queuing up.
But, without a doubt, it was much better than before.
And there was no need to worry about the part for the Imperial Tax.
The District government actually started to prepare for the Imperial Tax from the beginning of the year, reserving 40,000 Tax Currency. Its composition was mainly some raw materials that had undergone initial processing, textiles, and Alliance Government cash.
When the District government paid taxes to the higher level government, it could use Alliance Government cash. Correspondingly, the Alliance Government would use this Alliance currency to pay some key industrial zones, such as military factories and heavy industry plants; their output was the main force of the physical tax payment.
After all, when the Alliance Government was paying the Imperial Tax, the Imperial tax officials did not recognize any Alliance currency. In the eyes of the Empire, currency was just a worthless piece of paper; they only recognized proof of tax payment, which meant Tax Currency, or actual goods.
The Empire recognized a great many physical goods, but not every item. If you casually produced a kitchen knife or a table, the Empire would not even look at you. Not to mention, some service industries such as commerce within the planets, construction, transportation, medical industry, etc. They certainly created value within the planet, but they had nothing to pay to the Empire as taxes.
So, in fact, when the Planetary Government paid taxes, it mainly relied on heavy industry, military industry, textile industry, and agriculture—these industries produced the ‘hard currency’ recognized by the Empire for tax items.
But the workers in these production zones also need to live. Their living needs, such as transportation, medical care, service industry, food… come from the supply from other places. This is how the overall division of labor is formed: regions that can produce products listed in the Imperial Tax categories use currency issued by the Alliance to purchase services from other regions, while they themselves produce most of the goods needed for the Imperial Tax. Non-producing regions prove their contribution through affiliated industries using Alliance currency.
This division of labor exists widely at various levels: between districts, between Nest Capitals, and even between planets.
The main pillar industries of the Green Bee Street District are construction, transportation, waste recycling, and raw material initial processing. Except for the processed material products that can serve as actual goods to pay the Imperial Tax, the rest are not quite up to the mark.
Yet they still created value.
The real Imperial Tax was not something they needed to worry about; the large industrial production areas would provide it, and the higher authorities would plan and coordinate; the district helped in transportation, also sent out construction teams to build houses for other industrial zones, earning Alliance currency. This was essentially the labor value they had given, and it was recognized by the Alliance Government.
This is the essence of why the Green Bee Street District, with a local population of 410,000, had a total production value of 390,000 Tax Currency, consumed 350,000, and used 40,000 for tax purposes.
The per capita consumption of Green Bee Street District was 0.85 Tax Currency, not a very high standard of living but definitely a survivable one.
Shang Yanwen had once seen an old report where, in the hundred years before the Plague War, the per capita consumption in Korolya was actually only about 0.3 Tax Currency. It was a level that barely kept people from starving; the per capita output of Korolya was about 0.5 Tax Currency, only half of the Empire’s minimum per capita standard.
This was also essentially why the Korolya people had to pay 0.05 Tax Currency per capita as the Imperial Tax and then face a 1% chance of being conscripted as a tax payer.
As for the difference of 0.15 Tax Currency per capita… that would be a question for the former bureaucratic echelons of Korolya, the rulers.
Now, with the per capita consumption level reaching 0.85, more than double, it’s no wonder life has become bearable.
Moreover, this is the consumption level after setting aside 0.1 for the Imperial Tax, which means that Green Bee Street District will not need to pay personal taxes in the future.
Of course, these are just the results of Shang Yanwen’s observation of his own Green Bee Street District.