Chapter 1348: Chapter 770: Magic Lord of Thousand Changes
Bidding farewell to the sweating Yang Shiwei, Gu Jing donned his hat and returned to the spaceship.
The spaceship, carrying him and his entourage, departed from Yang Shiwei’s vessel and returned to the Space City of Lingze Star, docking right outside the helipad of the Imperial Taxation Departnt’s office building.
He strolled back to his office.
This is the office exclusively for the Alliance’s Imperial Taxation Envoy, now belonging to him.
The Imperial Taxation Task Force is now a permanent institution, its task is to coordinate the paynt of Imperial Tax by various governnt agencies and local governnts of the Alliance.
They are also managing the trade disparities in Imperial Tax on Lingze Star.
Yet with all of this added, problems arose.
The task force wielded too much power. Fifteen years ago, when the “Alliance Plan” was first implented, the tax pressure on the Alliance was quite high. Even military spending had to be cut, let alone other areas.
Taxation, local developnt investnt, trade investnt, military spending, special project investnt—all were competing for funds. And the Imperial Tax is especially pressing, a rigid annual requirent. Thus, the task force was given substantial authority.
The military is not to be trifled with, their budget was already cut according to the governor’s concept, still wanting money, who do you think you are?
Special project investnts are also difficult to handle, these funds are specially approved, so so confidential that even Osenia, the Alliance Premier, cannot inquire about them; thus, the task force couldn’t tackle them.
Thus, their focus could only be turned to trade and local developnt. Many conflicts arose, to the point that the task force’s forcible taxation led to incidents akin to ‘persecution’. There are many individuals in governnt departnts and the Legal Departnt keeping an eye on the task force, engaging in struggles.
After all, the Alliance is not a true utopia, issues that should arise do. So actions of the task force indeed negatively impacted the Alliance’s economic and social developnt.
But all these weren’t enough. The power held by the task force was vast. Particularly later on, the rapid increase in Imperial Tax trade figures under their control made the breeding of corruption inevitable.
Not everyone received training from the Loyal Heir Academy, the academy couldn’t accommodate so many; nor did everyone in the academy attend special training classes, receiving specific training as political commissars.
Others, lacking this background, indeed couldn’t rise to high positions. But the petty officials’ corruption is often more deadly because they are far more nurous.
Fortunately, the political climate of the Alliance, under years of stern and serious treatnt, was not bad, with corruption not particularly severe.
The Alliance’s Ministry of Internal Affairs and Anti-Corruption Bureau conducted a joint action to clean up the task force. Execution for those deserving execution, imprisonnt for those deserving imprisonnt; for those who did no wrong but had subordinates who did, or those who knew but did not report, they were charged with negligence; truly uninford individuals still had to bear leadership responsibility, facing demotion or reassignnt.
After purging the Imperial Tax Task Force, dissatisfied still, the Alliance severely reduced the power held by the task force.
Imperial Tax trade disparity managent was the first responsibility stripped from them, leading to the establishnt of the dedicated Lingze Trading Company, a state-owned enterprise under the Alliance Comrce Departnt.
Subsequently, taxation collection duties were also removed from their responsibilities. The Alliance already had a taxation system in place, and local governnts had their fiscal bodies. In earlier years, prior to developnt, when Imperial Tax pressure was substantial, a task force was needed for oversight. Over the last seven or eight years, it was no longer necessary.
After these functions were stripped from the Imperial Tax Task Force, their remaining tasks were to conduct Imperial Tax settlents on Lingze Star, and to coordinate the tax amounts each locale, trade route, and business association needed to pay, far less esteed than they once were.
Even so, the Central Alliance remained a bit uneasy, dispatching a special envoy to Lingze Star annually. The level of the taxation envoy is above the director of the task force, but it is a temporary work appointnt. Upon arriving on Lingze Star, they often bring teams from the Ministry of Internal Affairs and the Anti-Corruption Bureau, clearly indicating that the taxation envoy’s task is not specific work but to act as a representative of higher authority of the Alliance, dealing with the Imperial Taxation Departnt and supervising the task force that experienced corruption issues.
The position of taxation envoy held by Gu Jing presently stemd from this.
Yang Shiwei’s initial thought wasn’t entirely wrong; Gu Jing indeed ca over to ‘gold-plate’, to ‘pamper his resu’.
Regarding the Imperial Tax issue, the Alliance also gradually felt the pressure. Particularly after Ambassador Salihovic concluded his diplomatic work at Holy Terra, returned to the Alliance, and assud the position of Minister of Foreign Affairs. He also brought back a lot of firsthand intelligence from Holy Terra, coupled with his deep understanding of Holy Terra’s political scene after having resided there for over twenty years. He explicitly warned the Alliance of the Central Empire’s changing attitude, leaning towards viewing the Alliance as beginning to beco uncontrollable.
Yet, it had not broken into the open, the rift between them seed still fernting.
The Alliance had made a lot of preparations and contingency plans, but before this trend beca an imdiate threat, things proceeded as they would.
In the past 15 years, the GDP within the Alliance initially surged rapidly with a growth rate over 10%, slowing in recent years but still exceeding 6%.
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