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J. T. KAMM
out to private concessions. So pervasive was tax farming in this regard that the Kowloon Customs itself joined with the local magistracy in insuring its maintenance. CSO15 of 1900 records the case of the Ying Yi Farm which was granted the concession for supplying services to trading junks at Lai Chi Kok (*** ) in exchange for supplying free water to customs cruisers.4
Despite its significance for late Ch'ing finance, little has been written concerning the origins and structure of tax farming in China. C.M. Chang's case study of auctioned revenue collection in Ching-Hai Hsien **), Hopei, remains our most authoritative account. Chang, who focuses on the workings of the brokerage tax farm, ascribes the origins of tax farming in China to the growth of miscellaneous taxes imposed after the Taiping Rebellion, an assertion decisively rebutted by Lien-sheng Yang, who traces the institution as far back as the fifth century. In general, we can say that tax farming arose at various times in Chinese history to meet the demands of the specific era and locality.
There was indeed a remarkable increase in miscellaneous taxes imposed on Hsin-An in the late nineteenth century. In an appendix to his report on the New Territory, Lockhart lists a number of "extra" taxes and rents not found in the gazetteer of 1819. This list, in turn, is borne out by an investigation of the data contained in the Kwangtung Ts'ai-cheng Shuo-ming-shu (*****). Lockhart, distrusting the figures supplied by the Nam Tau Magistrate, persuaded an informant in Sham Chun () to provide him with an unofficial assessment of the revenue collected annually in the Tung Lu. As expected, Lockhart discovered a great number of omissions and discrepancies between the "official" and "unofficial" revenues. Lockhart observed that the magistrate and his superiors benefit substantially from these discrepancies, but noted that "not a small portion of it (the difference between reported and collected revenue) is secured by those who farm various items of revenue, for which they pay much less than they make out of them."
Despite the surge of miscellaneous taxes and the consequent rise in the activity of farmers in the trade sector, the origins of tax farming in the East River counties of the Kwangchow Prefecture can be traced to earlier times. I propose to show that tax farming evolved in the agricultural sector, and was the direct result of the failure to effectively implement the official li-chia system.
70
J. T. KAMM
out to private concessions. So pervasive was tax farming in this regard that the Kowloon Customs itself joined with the local magis- tracy in insuring its maintenance. CSO 15 of 1900 records the case of the Ying Yi Farm which was granted the concession for supply- ing services to trading junks at Lai Chi Kok (✯✯✯ ) in exchange for supplying free water to customs cruisers.4
Despite its significance for late Ch'ing finance, little has been written concerning the origins and structure of tax farming in China. C.M. Chang's case study of auctioned revenue collection in Ching- Hai Hsien **), Hopei, remains our most authoritative account. Chang, who focuses on the workings of the brokerage tax farm, ascribes the origins of tax farming in China to the growth of mis- cellaneous taxes imposed after the Taiping Rebellion, an assertion decisively rebutted by Lien-sheng Yang, who traces the institution as far back as the fifth century. In general, we can say that tax farming arose at various times in Chinese history to meet the de- mands of the specific era and locality.
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There was indeed a remarkable increase in miscellaneous taxes imposed on Hsin-An in the late nineteenth century. In an appendix to his report on the New Territory, Lockhart lists a number of "extra" taxes and rents not found in the gazetteer of 1819. This list, in turn, is borne out by an investigation of the data contained in the Kwangtung Ts'ai-cheng Shuo-ming-shu (★★¥£*®*). Lockhart, distrusting the figures supplied by the Nam Tau Magis- trate, persuaded an informant in Sham Chun () to provide him with an unofficial assessment of the revenue collected annually in the Tung Lu. As expected, Lockhart discovered a great number of omissions and discrepancies between the "official” and “unofficial” revenues. Lockhart observed that the magistrate and his superiors benefit substantially from these discrepancies, but noted that “not a small portion of it (the difference between reported and collected revenue) is secured by those who farm various items of revenue, for which they pay much less than they make out of them.”
Despite the surge of miscellaneous taxes and the consequent rise in the activity of farmers in the trade sector, the origins of tax farming in the East River counties of the Kwangchow Prefecture can be traced to earlier times. I propose to show that tax farming evolved in the agricultural sector, and was the direct result of the failure to effectively implement the official li-chia system.
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