Likin (taxation)

The Lijin, also Likin :厘金Lijin, was a kind of internal control in China, which was first introduced as a means of financing the mostly locally excavated armies to suppress the Taiping Rebellion.

The Likin tax was first introduced in 1853 by the censor Lei Yixian in the area around Yangzhou as a way to raise funds for campaigns against local rebels. As the central government was short of Agriculture, the imperial court of the control gave the force of law and quickly became an important source of income for the military campaigns against the Taiping and Nian rebellions.

The tax was levied as ( VAT ) on goods in transit and transactions, where the tax rate is 2-10 percent higher. After the Taiping had been knocked down in 1864, was the Lijin to a permanent establishment of the Chinese tax system and he was an important source of income for the local government, as China had lost its collective bargaining after the conclusion of the Treaty of Nanking. In many ways the tax meant the decentralization of Staatsauthorität as a result of the Taiping Rebellion.

Foreign merchants in the treaty ports were of the view that the Lijin control was a barrier to import foreign goods to China and a violation of the trade agreements represented that China had closed with the West. As a result, tried several times unsuccessfully to put the Chinese government under pressure to abolish the tax, the foreign merchants. The tax was abolished by the Chinese government on 1 January 1931.