청대의 거래, 민국의 공증 ― 淸水江 지역 토지거래문서를 통해 본 稅契와 驗契 ―

초록

In the Qing period, shuiqi (tax registration of contracts) functioned as a procedure through which the state confirmed the transfer of private ownership from land transactions. In general, the government notarized contracts in exchange for a notarization fee. However, among privately preserved documents from the Qingshui River region in southwestern China, the overwhelming majority of private contracts remained as baiqi that had not undergone tax registration. This situation was attributable not only to the limited reach of governmental control over the Qingshui River basin, but also to the premodern Chinese state’s relatively passive stance toward contract tax collection under the guiding principles of “low taxation” and “minimal litigation”. With the establishment of the Republican government, however, the state simultaneously required the obligation to verify contracts concluded in the past and the right to secure fiscal revenue through such verification. The Republican government confronted the persistent fiscal deficits that had continued since the late Qing. Among the potential sources of revenue to which it turned were transaction contracts concluded during the Qing period. In securing revenue from contract taxes, the priority was not to raise the tax rate on future contracts, but to subject contracts concluded under the previous dynasty to tax registration. To this end, the Republican government stipulated new tax rates of 5 percent and 1 percent depending on whether Qing contracts had undergone tax registration at the time of their conclusion. This represented a novel initiative not observed in earlier dynastic transitions. In order to implement this policy, the Guizhou provincial government introduced a new form of notarized document for Qing contracts known as duanmai qi. In 1914, the Republican government established a new procedure called yanqi (contract verification). Separate from the payment of contract tax, this was an additional step introduced in the name of contract inspection. It was soon incorporated into the administrative framework of tax registration and became a new source of fiscal revenue. As a result, in 1914, the combined income from verification fees and contract taxes in Guizhou Province reached an unprecedented level. Furthermore, Guizhou created a new standardized form, shuiyan maiqi, thereby fully integrating the verification procedure into the tax registration system. Over time, the authorities increased the fees associated with both verification and tax registration, placing growing pressure on the populace. This change suggests that the strategy of generating revenue through Qing-era contracts had reached its limits. In other words, the focus of fiscal extraction shifted from uncovering previously unregistered contracts to increasing taxation on contracts that would be concluded in the future. Did Republican officials ultimately achieve their dual objectives—ascertaining ownership and securing revenue—through tax registration and contract verification? Compared with the Qing’s ideals of low taxation and minimal litigation, they operated with considerably fewer constraints. They raised tax rates to three times those of the Qing and intervened actively in cases of noncompliance with tax registration. Yet the realization of these aims was far from straightforward. Local practices in the Qingshui River region, centered on the continued use of unregistered white contracts, remained deeply entrenched.

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