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逃税する者たち : ボグド・ハーン政権期モンゴル国における関税問題

Tariff Evaders:Tariff Issues in the Bogd Khanate Mongolia

Japanese (日本語)

国際文化学研究 : 神戸大学大学院国際文化学研究科紀要

63

105*-135*

神戸大学大学院国際文化学研究科

2025-03

After the outbreak of the Chinese Revolution on October 10, 1911, Mongolia declared its independence from the Qing dynasty on December 1, and established a new government with Bogd Khan. At that time, the tariff revenue accounted for 70%–80% of the total revenue of Mongolia’s central government, excluding loans from Russia. Since Mongolia’s domestic industries were underdeveloped, the tariff was a financial measure rather than a protective one. Therefore, securing stable tariff revenue was a critical issue for Mongolia in implementing various policies to maintain its independence and build a unified state for all of Mongolia. However, merchants, who were subject to tariffs, were profit-driven and had always been reluctant to pay tariffs or always sought ways to evade them. Therefore, merchants who wanted to avoid tariffs played a cat-and-mouse game with the Mongolian government, which needed to secure tariff revenue. They attempted to evade tariffs by exploiting the loopholes in the regulations established by the Mongolian government, whereas the government sought countermeasures to cope with these tariff evaders. In Mongolia, which bordered only China and Russia, Chinese merchants and Mongolian citizens were the chief tariff payers, while Russians were exempted from tariffs due to the treaties concluded between Mongolia and Russia. Therefore, Chinese merchants often borrowed their names from Russians to avoid paying tariffs. In addition, local governments that collected tariffs from merchants were to remit a default percentage of the tariffs to the central government, but some of them did not remit at all. The Mongolian government addressed tax evasion with severe penalties and rewarded those who detected tax evaders. Furthermore, regulations were amended to counter tax evasion that exploited loopholes. Based on archival documents from the National Central Archives of Mongolia, this paper clarifies the actual scenario of tariff evasion by Chinese, Mongolian, and Russian individuals in Mongolia and the countermeasures implemented by the Mongolian government to secure tariff revenue by examining specific cases of tariff evaders.

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