The Deed Tax Research In Jiangsu And Zhejiang Area Since Qing Dynasty

The deed tax, which origins from Song Dynasty, was not perfect until Qing Dynasty. Its historical development was based on the Chinese vast land, closely linked to the vital interests of the people. Since the Qing Dynasty, the development form of the deed tax had had a long and complex process, which showed the tendency from miscellaneous redundancy to clarity, instability to stabilization and gaps to improvements. The overall snapshot of the deed tax was investigated in this paper, from the aspects of levies, management regulations, expense utility and punishment method, in order to get a firm understanding how the Qing government maintained the transaction order and promoted the healthy operation through the regulation of the civil behavior about the transaction of land and buildings, As a consequence, we enhanced our thought and exploration about the local economy of Qing Dynasty. At the same time, the deed tax had always occupied a space in the field of national levies revenue, which had remained at 100-200 thousand liang from mid 18 century to early 19 century. According to the tax rate, we could further obtain dynamic change of the amount of land and buildings transaction and the relevant problem.In fact, the official statistics could not accurately reflect the folk transaction volume of land and buildings in total, which may account for only one fifth of that of the real transaction. Also the factors affecting the actual turnover were implicit, mainly as follows:(1) Since the Ming and Qing Dynasties commodity economy became active so that it had greatly promoted the prosperity of the land market, which quickly became the breeding ground; (2) The last three hundred years saw the collision of various domestic and international factors, and they caused fluctuations of Chinese traditional market, such as slight or significant changes of the price about field, silver, rice, to bring local or global shocks to transactions of land and buildings; (3) The subjective human factors, such as the loyalty to vote taxes, taxation efforts of the local officials and the complication during the process of land real estate transaction, affected a degree of fluctuation variability of land transactions.As the saying goes, the land could change three owners in a hundred years. Since the Ming and Qing Dynasty, private land transactions had become more frequent and fast, and the market of land transactions had become increasingly popular. Thereby the change of deed tax amount in the Jiangsu and Zhejiang area of Qing Dynasty was discussed in this paper, to build a kind of model which could estimate the percentage of land transaction with combination of cultivated lands area and their price. It mainly solved three problems:(1) Individual regions were chosen to be analyzed as case to evaluate the area proportion of transaction lands in farmed lands and further estimate the average cycle of lands transaction in different region. As a consequence, the prosperity level of the lands transaction was quantitatively analyzed to cognize the folk lands transaction system. (2)The regional difference of deed tax and interrelation of local commodity economy were studied in Qing dynasty, by comparison of the difference of tax imposition management and the amount of variation between Jiangsu and Zhejiang province. (3)The deed tax was one of the tax that was the most closely connected with the people in turbulence of end of Qing dynasty. And its tendency and development was explored to get the old picture when the central government adjusted the deed taxation through various measures.The deed tax was thoroughly explored mainly in Jiangsu and Zhejiang province district, which was just small parts of that around the country, further a tip of iceberg during period of the Qing dynasty. On one hand, it was expected that the research contributed to the recognition of the deed tax, made clear the transactions of the folk lands and further realized the implications between the feudal land development and the social economy development. On the other hand, it was hoped that the research would draw the interest of historical pursuer, gave access to the further research for the national deed tax and land transaction, and the original exploration for the levies system in Qing dynasty to promote the investigation for the social and economic history since the Qing dynasty.