At night.
After dinner, Qin Lin played with Wangcai for a while. Since being adopted, the dog had become clingy and eager to please. It would gaze up at you with its bright, round eyes, then gently rub its head against your leg. Anyone would find it hard to resist reaching down to pat its head.
Back in his room, he found that the strawberries and okra seedlings in the game were already a little dry and needed watering.
Qin Lin controlled the Game Character to carry a bucket and watering can and water the strawberries and okra seedlings. Then he started chatting with Zhao Moqing on WeChat.
Two more days passed.
Early in the morning, Qin Lin delivered the ripe strawberries and okra to RT-Mart. But when he returned to his shop on Market Street, he had to get busy at the computer.
The deadline for fruit and vegetable shops to file their taxes with the local tax bureau had arrived.
Filing taxes and paying taxes weren't the same thing. Companies and sole proprietors didn't necessarily have to pay taxes, but they did have to file.
Filing taxes meant reporting business operations, income, expenses, and other details to the tax bureau. If you had no income or didn't meet the requirements for paying taxes, then you didn't have to pay.
Although he had inherited the fruit shop more than a year ago, paying taxes was still unfamiliar territory for Qin Lin.
That was because fruit shops benefited from certain special policies: if monthly sales didn't exceed 100,000 yuan, they didn't have to pay value-added tax. Under the local support policy, they didn't have to pay taxes if their sales stayed below 50,000 yuan.
After rent, utilities, and other expenses, his little fruit and vegetable shop made just under 10,000 yuan a month, with a profit margin of about 25%. It didn't meet the requirements for paying taxes.
In other words, he hadn't paid a single cent of tax on his wages so far, yet he'd continued to enjoy the national health insurance and various other benefits. To some extent, he was one of those people holding the country back.
How shameful!
Still, he had filed his taxes every month without fail. That was his obligation.
To stagger the workload, the local tax bureau had designated these two days for fruit and vegetable sole proprietors to file their taxes.
Before, he hadn't met the requirements for paying taxes, so he could just fudge a few things and move on. Nobody cared. Everyone did the same.
This time, he probably wouldn't get away with that. He'd definitely have to pay taxes.
Otherwise, the amount in his bank account would suddenly balloon from just over 4,000 yuan to so much more in such a short time—and it would keep growing. The banking regulators would definitely flag it, and that would cause big problems.
Since he had to pay taxes, he needed to work out the figures first and organize all the invoices from this period.
His accounts were a little complicated. Sole proprietors didn't have to pay corporate income tax, but once they exceeded the tax-exempt and VAT-exempt thresholds, they had to pay the taxes levied on individual businesses as well as value-added tax.
The rates were roughly as follows:
Net profits of up to 30,000 yuan were subject to 5% personal income tax.
From 30,000 to 90,000 yuan: 10% tax + 3% value-added tax.
From 90,000 to 300,000 yuan: 20% tax + 3% value-added tax.
Qin Lin had no idea how much tax his fruit shop would owe now.
Although he'd made more than 400,000 yuan from sales without any costs, he obviously couldn't report his business that way. He had to deduct the normal market costs.
If he did report it as having no costs, the staff reviewing his paperwork might take him for a clueless fool and patiently explain that he needed to calculate costs and profits. Even if he wanted to pay extra taxes by reporting no costs, they wouldn't dare process it.
Besides, nobody could be stupid enough to file taxes as if they had no costs.
So he needed to sort out his accounts before submitting his tax return.
After working for the entire day, his neck and shoulders aching, Qin Lin finally finished calculating the accounts with a computer program.
Including today's sales, he'd sold 186,977 yuan worth of watermelons, with an accounted profit of 35,265 yuan; 147,753 yuan worth of strawberries, with an accounted profit of 36,938 yuan; and 135,165 yuan worth of okra, with an accounted profit of 33,791 yuan.
In other words, although he'd made more than 400,000 yuan without any costs, after deducting the normal costs of the watermelons, strawberries, and okra, his profit came to 105,994 yuan.
That meant he'd have to pay taxes, with the portion over 90,000 yuan taxed at the 20% rate for individual business income, plus 3% value-added tax. The calculations worked out to more than 20,000 yuan in taxes.
The saying was true: the more you earned, the more you paid. No wonder so many people tried to evade taxes.
Before this, the idea of paying that much tax all at once had been unimaginable to him.
In a place like Youcheng, not many people earned 20,000 yuan a month, let alone paid more than 20,000 yuan in taxes.
Still, when he thought about how he'd made more than 300,000 yuan in profit without having to pay tax on it, he didn't mind paying the 20,000 or so.
Once he had figured everything out, he logged into the tax system as usual and started filing online.
After completing the process, he just had to wait for the application to be reviewed and accepted.
The next day.
Qin Lin got up, picked the ripe strawberries and okra as usual, then planted new seeds.
When he opened the door, Wangcai's eager whimpering sounded again, and the dog stretched its head toward him.
Qin Lin smiled and reached out to rub Wangcai's head.
The dog had gotten into the habit of waiting outside his door for him to get up, apparently just so they could share that little morning interaction.
After breakfast, as he was heading out, Wangcai carried its leash over in its mouth and dropped it into his hand.
He left the dog at the shop and headed to the warehouse, where he loaded that morning's ripe strawberries and okra for delivery to RT-Mart. After finishing up and returning to the shop, he checked online and saw that the tax bureau had accepted his filing. Relieved, he hopped on his little electric scooter and headed to the tax bureau.
Once the filing had been accepted, he could go to the tax bureau to collect the payment slip and pay his taxes. He could pay online too, but he had to bring in documents and apply first.
It was his first time ever paying taxes, so of course he wanted to go to the tax bureau in person.
To Qin Lin's surprise, just as he rode his little electric scooter up to the tax bureau and stopped, a familiar Audi pulled up.
Chen Hao got out with two colleagues. When they saw Qin Lin, they froze for a moment.
He hadn't expected to run into Zhao Moqing's husband right after returning from an errand with his colleagues.
He'd been embarrassed in front of this guy twice now, and at the moment, there was nobody he disliked more.
But Chen Hao glanced at his two colleagues and smiled as he greeted Qin Lin. "Fancy seeing you again."
The two colleagues looked at Qin Lin. One of them asked, "Chen Hao, you know him?"
Chen Hao smiled. "You could say that. He's Zhao Moqing's husband."
As he said it, a strange grin appeared on Chen Hao's face. That was what he was after.
Ever since his colleagues at the bureau had learned he was interested in Zhao Moqing, they'd kept asking him how things were going between them. He hadn't known what to say.
This was his chance to let them know that Zhao Moqing was married—to a man who rode an electric scooter.
These days, anyone whose family was even slightly well-off would buy a car after graduating and starting work. They wouldn't be riding an electric scooter.
Besides, with a wife like Zhao Moqing, who would have the nerve to go out on an electric scooter?
Then people wouldn't focus on whether he'd managed to win Zhao Moqing over. They'd just think she'd married beneath her and had poor judgment.
Those two colleagues of his would soon spread the gossip.
At Chen Hao's words, the two colleagues turned curious, assessing looks on Qin Lin. Zhao Moqing was the belle of the bureau, and they hadn't expected her to be married already. Judging by her husband's appearance, he clearly wasn't well-off.
Qin Lin naturally recognized Chen Hao. He hadn't expected the other man to greet him, but he nodded politely. "Hello."
"Here to pick Moqing up again? She won't be off work for a while yet!" Chen Hao sounded as if he were just giving him a heads-up, but he really wanted to make sure his colleagues knew that Zhao Moqing's husband came to pick her up on an electric scooter.
"I filed my taxes. I'm here to pay them." Qin Lin wasn't stupid. He could hear the barely concealed sense of superiority in Chen Hao's voice. He had no intention of humoring him, so he replied politely and headed inside.
Chen Hao and his two colleagues froze.
One of them said, "Isn't today the day fruit and vegetable businesses file their taxes? Is Zhao Moqing's husband a fruit and vegetable business owner? If he's making enough to be taxed, his income must be pretty good."
The other added, "At least 10,000 yuan a month. That's a high income in Youcheng. If business is good, he might even make 20,000. He's doing a lot better than us civil servants in this little county."
"How's that possible? If he makes 20,000 a month, why's he riding an electric scooter?" Chen Hao frowned. As he muttered to himself, he looked at the battered little scooter.
He'd never believe it.
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