Remarks on the Notification Regarding Serious Violations of Policy in Tax Collection by the Shanghai Municipal Tax Authorities (March 27, 1953)

Comrade Bo Yibo [1]: This document [2] is instructive and should be issued by the Central Financial and Economic Commission (with a heading and a few introductory remarks) to the financial commissions of the major regions and provinces/cities, as well as to their respective fiscal administrations.
Mao Zedong March 27

It was simultaneously printed in Beijing as previously indicated (Shang Kun [3] is aware). ·· Printed from the manuscript.

Notes [1] Bo Yibo was at the time Deputy Director of the State Council’s Finance and Economic Commission and Minister of Finance. [2] Refers to the report dated March 25, 1953, from the Ministry of Finance of the Central People’s Government to the East China Financial Commission and its Fiscal Administration, and to the Shanghai Municipal Financial Commission, with a copy sent to Mao Zedong, concerning serious policy violations in tax collection by the Shanghai municipal tax authorities.
The report stated that, under the leadership and supervision of the Municipal Party Committee and the Municipal Financial Commission, the Shanghai Municipal Tax Bureau had worked hard to fulfill last year’s tax collection targets, achieving certain results.
However, due to a tendency among financial department leaders to prioritize tasks over policy—placing greater emphasis on meeting targets while providing insufficient guidance on policy—there existed, not only among ordinary tax officials but also among leading cadres at all levels of the tax bureaus, a view that pitted tasks against policy, with some holding the notion that one could pursue targets even at the expense of adhering to policy.
Recently, Issue No. 4 of “Party Newspaper Communications” reported on serious policy violations occurring in certain sub-bureaus of the Shanghai Municipal Tax Bureau.
Some were forcibly demanding advance payments of business tax and commodity tax from private merchants; others imposed taxes on goods that were not subject to taxation; and still others, in an effort to expedite tax collection, resorted to grave acts of lawlessness and disciplinary misconduct, such as detaining individuals, suspending them by ropes, and conducting round-the-clock interrogations—actions that, upon discovery by the tax bureau’s leading cadres, were left uncorrected. [3] Shang Kun refers to Yang Shangkun, who at the time served as Director of the General Office of the CPC Central Committee.