Chapter 1968 - A Basically Smooth First Day

He watched the woman scribble on the paper with a sharp-nibbed dip pen, then rise to position the document on an iron platform and press down firmly before handing it over.

"This will suffice. This is the original Tax Registration Certificate, which must be displayed prominently at your business premises." The female cadre passed through a small booklet as well. "This is the duplicate. Keep it safe—you'll need it for handling numerous tax matters in the future."

Steward Yan accepted and opened the booklet, finding it exquisitely crafted. Various statements in standard Song typeface—which he couldn't entirely decipher—had been transcribed within. The paper bore watermarks, though the large seal in the lower right corner now read "Great Song Senate Guangzhou Special Municipality Finance and Tax Bureau Directly Subordinate Administration Bureau." What was the distinction here? Steward Yan found Australian complexities sometimes genuinely incomprehensible.

Stowing the new registration certificate, Steward Yan and Advisor Xu counted their various documents again. Only after confirming no omissions did they proceed toward the main door. Unexpectedly, before even descending the steps, they found themselves surrounded by a group of people with square boxes hanging around their necks.

"May I ask whether your tax payment proceeded smoothly today?"

"Smoothly, quite smoothly." Steward Yan recognized these as Australian "reporters" whose writings would appear in the newspapers. This "interview" had been anticipated, and cooperation was essential. He immediately assumed an expression of benevolent contentment.

"Then how would you two compare the Australian Song Finance and Tax Bureau's collection methods to the Usurper Ming's Taxation Office?"

"In this student's humble assessment: Great Song tax collection is, firstly, clear and transparent. Here and here—" Steward Yan knew Australians especially relished "old versus new comparisons" to demonstrate their "advanced nature," so he'd instantaneously composed an essay in his mind. He extracted the tax receipt and brandished it. "What was collected, for which period, what amount—everything recorded in black and white. Secondly, upright and honest. I'll confide in you all: this humble one prepared every variety of customary red envelope today"—Steward Yan actually understood the Senate's requirements for cadres perfectly well; he'd brought not a penny extra, but encountering reporters naturally demanded flattery—"yet didn't use a single one. Whether floating surcharges, meltage fees, or straw sandal money—none of these existed. This is truly a Senate that considers us common people!"

"Would you two mind holding the tax receipt and registration certificate for a moment?"

"Certainly, certainly." Steward Yan immediately raised the tax receipt alongside Advisor Xu, both faces beaming as though the finest spring breezes paled in comparison.

With a flash, even Steward Yan—who had witnessed this "camera" before—felt his knees weaken. He mustered his spirit to push through the crowd, never mind Advisor Xu trailing behind, already half-frightened to death.

The first day's tax collection work settled into rhythm after roughly an hour. Every window began "digesting" the flow of people at comparable speeds. Following a brief noon rest, by 13:43 when the final taxpayer departed, the Guangzhou Municipal Finance and Tax Bureau Directly Subordinate Collection Hall had processed sixty-four registration transactions and sixty-three collection transactions. The additional registration resulted from the Zhang family, having apparently received word from somewhere, separately registering their old city shop and their new Da Shijie establishment as independent enterprises.

Zhang Yu's "family separation" this time was thoroughly complete by current standards. Zhang Xiaoqi studied the tax registration stub register with some surprise. Apart from industry category, these two shops differed not only in name, venue, and business scope—even the legal representatives were different. This was also the only major household thus far to take such measures. Currently, the Senate and Finance and Tax Bureau had issued no clear guidance on future tax policies for group enterprises and related enterprises, nor any support plans for small or new enterprises. Of course, with Zhang Xiaoqi's tax expertise and years of experience, she could predict these developments would emerge eventually. Moreover, tax categories and items couldn't remain so expansive indefinitely; detailed policies and differentiated tax rates for various enterprise types and business scopes were inevitable in subsequent phases. But for Zhang Yu to act preemptively already demonstrated considerable sophistication in legitimate tax avoidance reminiscent of old timeline practices. Had he conceived this independently? No—this required someone intimately familiar with tax systems, and familiar with old timeline tax regimes specifically, to devise. Zhang Yikun—Zhang Xiaoqi couldn't help recalling this person. Ai Zhixin had "informally" briefed this matter in internal meetings—could someone like Zhang Yikun within the Finance and Tax Bureau be providing "guidance" behind the scenes?

She immediately thought of Ai Zhixin—might this fellow be "stealing while guarding the shop"? His designs on Nan Wan'er proved him no honest man. But there were no women surnamed Zhang around Ai Zhixin... the puzzle remained.

Today's tax funds hadn't been tallied yet. Presently every window was conducting daily closing, abacuses clicking furiously throughout the hall. Truthfully, each window had served relatively few taxpayers today; even Nan Wan'er at Window No. 1, the fastest, had processed only five households. In Zhang Xiaoqi's assessment, the efficiency was simply dismal. Some of these young women had already begun reconciling for the second time, terrified of making a single error. Fortunately, most collections were Delong checks already inscribed with amounts, saving considerable trouble counting cash. Apparently the "daily deposit of business funds" and "cashless payment" initiatives promoted earlier had proven effective.

Delong integration had to be implemented. Even if temporarily impossible, she would corner Meng Xian later and secure his agreement. Zhang Xiaoqi silently resolved this. Just as she formed this thought, she noticed some windows actually commencing a third reconciliation.

"Everyone stop for a moment. Checking twice suffices." Zhang Xiaoqi immediately halted this behavior. Meticulousness and responsibility were certainly virtuous, but they couldn't be maintained by disregarding efficiency through endless repetitive reconciliation. One must strive for accuracy in a single pass. This was what her director had taught her when she first began working years ago, and now she intended to instill this awareness in these seventeenth-century women.

"I'm very pleased with your carefulness and responsibility, but you must also have confidence in your own abilities. Our work can't possibly be so minimal every day with so much time for repeated verification. Besides, summarization follows. So I hope everyone strives to complete the work correctly on the first attempt in future. Now, those who have checked twice without issues may organize tax funds and vouchers, and forward them to the accounting room for summary reporting."

Tax fund summarization could proceed by numerous methods. In the old timeline, classification might follow taxpayer, affiliated tax authority, tax category, treasury, and so forth. Here, Zhang Xiaoqi selected summarization by tax category. This naturally reflected that all Guangzhou currently possessed only one tax management authority—the Guangzhou Municipal Finance and Tax Bureau Directly Subordinate Administration Division—and only one treasury, the Central Bank agency operating through Delong. Beyond this, she harbored another unspoken rationale: the couple privately believed this method would suit upcoming governmental requirements.

Unlike hall accountants in the old timeline—typically one or two people or even part-time—Zhang Xiaoqi's hall devoted one large and one small room to the accounting function, plus a voucher warehouse. The smaller room housed the Voucher Accounting Room with three staff members.

According to regulations, tax receipts placed by window staff each day required registration for issuance here first. This batch of the latest Australian Song Finance and Tax Bureau tax receipts bore a set of nineteen-digit serial numbers in the upper right corner following old timeline standards. The numbers ran continuously, so when the voucher accountant recorded window staff usage, they needed only register starting and ending numbers. After daily collection concluded, window staff organized their issued, unused, and voided tax receipts, then conducted daily closing with the voucher accountant. The voucher accountant would compare records against actuals; upon confirming no errors, they registered the daily usage ledger. Unused receipts could continue in window staff hands; for issued ones, the first ply of the tax payment certificate (Tax Authority Retention Ply) was to be properly maintained by window staff after accounting room summarization, bound into books monthly, and submitted to the Voucher Accounting Room for retention and reference. If voided tax receipts remained intact on both plies, the accounting room would recover, bind, preserve, and register them. If errors discovered in subsequent reconciliation required voiding, management personnel had to recover the second ply (Taxpayer Tax Payment Certificate Ply) from the taxpayer before preserving and registering together. Tax receipts were forbidden to be lost, altered, or damaged without cause. Window staff were prohibited from borrowing or misappropriating receipts from each other, and tax receipts had to be used sequentially by serial number without skipping or breaking sequence.

Compared to the Voucher Accounting Room, the adjacent Hall Tax Accounting Room was considerably livelier. This didn't indicate a chatty atmosphere, but rather that abacus sounds in this room were double the density of the windows conducting daily closing earlier.

This large room seated twelve people—nearly matching window personnel numbers. The setup looked substantial, but actual efficiency remained modest. Zhang Xiaoqi felt helpless about this. With computers, one person could handle all this work. But currently, converting tax receipts forwarded from windows—organized by household—into summary receipts classified by tax category required considerable manual labor for this single conversion alone.

Though Guangzhou possessed a "Computing Center," and Ai Zhixin had originally harbored great expectations for it while conducting relevant business consultations with Feng Nuo, they soon discovered the Computing Center's electromechanical computers were bulky and unwieldy, genuinely inconvenient for Tax Bureau purposes. The card-encoding of these tables alone constituted an enormous undertaking. Consequently, the Finance and Tax Bureau hadn't pinned hopes on "computerization" from the outset, planning to employ it only for data summarization and analysis.

The accounting room staff first received tax receipts and funds individually from each window, verifying that totals matched. Then, with two people assigned per tax category, they passed tax receipts sequentially, each registering the amount for their designated tax category on the ledger. Finally, they calculated subtotals for each tax category and the grand total, comparing against total tax funds. Upon confirmation, they transcribed tax category subtotals from the ledger onto "Tax Summary Payment Slips" in single-category-per-slip format, completing the tax fund summarization work.