Comment on the Ministry of Finance's Report on the Work of Final Settlement and Payment of the 1952 Income Tax〔1〕
(March 10, 1953)

Comrade Yibo:

This document〔2〕 is very good. It should be (1) circulated in the name of the Central Committee to all Central Bureaus, Sub-bureaus, Provincial Committees, Prefectural Committees, County Committees, and the Municipal Committees of all large, medium, and small cities; (2) issued as an order by the Central Ministry of Finance to all units in the tax system. A medium-sized county has more than eight hundred financial and economic cadres, and neither the County Committee nor these cadres have a thorough grasp of tax policy, resulting in great deviations; therefore, it must be sent down to the County Committee level. As for small cities, for example, places like Linqing and Botou, as long as they have a Municipal Committee organization, it should also be sent down to them. Please handle all of the above. This document has been sent to Huang Yanpei and Chen Shutong〔3〕 for their review, and they have expressed their agreement.

Mao Zedong
March 10

Published according to the manuscript.

Notes
〔1〕 This comment was written on a letter to Mao Zedong dated March 8, 1953, from Bo Yibo, Minister of Finance of the Central People's Government, regarding the situation of the working conference on the final settlement and payment of the 1952 income tax. The letter stated that the Central Ministry of Finance and the General Taxation Bureau had convened a conference, which was attended by the heads of the tax bureaus of all major administrative regions and principal cities. Before the conference, the General Taxation Bureau had conducted investigations and research on the tax work in several cities and was well-prepared. The conference was very successful, resolved many issues in a truth-seeking manner, and was generally in line with the spirit of the Chairman's instruction to "do as much business as one has capital, earn as much profit as one makes, and collect as much tax as is due." Therefore, it was necessary to circulate it to all localities for reference.
〔2〕 Refers to the report from the Ministry of Finance of the Central People's Government to Mao Zedong and the Central Committee, dated March 4, 1953, on the preparations for the work of final settlement and payment of the 1952 income tax as reported by various localities, which Bo Yibo submitted with his letter. See Note〔2〕 on page of this volume.
〔3〕 Huang Yanpei was then Chairman of the China Democratic National Construction Association and Vice Premier of the Government Administration Council. Chen Shutong was then Chairman of the Preparatory Committee of the All-China Federation of Industry and Commerce and Vice Chairman of the National Committee of the Chinese People's Political Consultative Conference.