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The Spanish tax reform of 1845, approved in 1844, greatly changed the tax system of Spain. It established the basis for a system that continues to this day.
In the summer of 1843, a military coup led by the Moderate generals Francisco Serrano, Ramón María Narváez and Juan Prim removed the Progressive leader Baldomero Espartero from his position as regent, ending a three-year Progressive ascendancy. Queen Isabella II, who had just reached the age of 13, was declared to have reached the age of majority, ending the regency. Within a year, that led to the beginning of the década moderada , ten years of rule by the Moderates.
The executive council that came to power in 1844 was presided over by Narváez. It undertook a tax reform, proposed by a commission whose key figure was the brilliant but logical and orderly Ramón de Santillán. It was carried out by Finance Minister Alejandro Mon. The reform broke the tax system of Antiguo Régimen and established a basis for taxation in Spain that remained intact to the end of the 19th century, and most of it continued well past that date, some remaining today.
The prior system had separate tax regimes in the former Kingdom of Aragón, in Navarre, in the Basque Country and in the rest of Spain. It involved a great variety of taxes, most of them dating from the Middle Ages.
The reform was largely along the lines of economic liberalism: legality, sufficiency and generality with a single unified fiscal system throughout the country, with the intention to eliminate barriers to economic growth. Internal customs barriers were eliminated along with such longstanding taxes as the diezmos , alcabala and millones . In general, there was a movement from indirect taxation to direct taxation. The new system involved five key taxes:
The reform also constituted changes in customs fees (tariffs).
The industrial and commercial subsidy was widely protested and resulted in a high level of fraud. The administrative apparatus of the Spanish government was poorly prepared for the new system and so tax collection was farmed to municipal governments and guilds. The consumption taxes were also widely protested. They were seen as falling disproportionately on the poor.
The tax reform provided the basis for the recovery of Spain's finances during Isabella's reign and allowed a program of public works. The system remained essentially intact until 1900, when the effect of the loss of Spain's colonies in the Spanish–American War led to a further tax reform by Raimundo Fernández Villaverde.
A tax is a compulsory financial charge or some other type of levy imposed on a taxpayer by a governmental organization in order to fund government spending and various public expenditures. A failure to pay, along with evasion of or resistance to taxation, is punishable by law. Taxes consist of direct or indirect taxes and may be paid in money or as its labour equivalent. The first known taxation took place in Ancient Egypt around 3000–2800 BC.
Isabella II was Queen of Spain from 1833 until 1868.
An ecotax is a tax levied on activities which are considered to be harmful to the environment and is intended to promote environmentally friendly activities via economic incentives. Such a policy can complement or avert the need for regulatory approaches. Often, an ecotax policy proposal may attempt to maintain overall tax revenue by proportionately reducing other taxes ; such proposals are known as a green tax shift towards ecological taxation. Ecotaxes address the failure of free markets to consider environmental impacts.
A consumption tax is a tax levied on consumption spending on goods and services. The tax base of such a tax is the money spent on consumption. Consumption taxes are usually indirect, such as a sales tax or a value-added tax. However, a consumption tax can also be structured as a form of direct, personal taxation, such as the Hall–Rabushka flat tax.
Spain in the 19th century was a country in turmoil. Occupied by Napoleon from 1808 to 1814, a massively destructive "war of independence" ensued, driven by an emergent Spanish nationalism. Spain was divided between the liberal ideas that were associated with revolutionary France and the reaction that followed as personified by the rule of Ferdinand VII. Ferdinand's rule included the loss of the Spanish colonies in the New World, except for Cuba and Puerto Rico, in the 1810s and 1820s. A series of civil wars then broke out in Spain, pitting Spanish liberals and then republicans against conservatives, culminating in the Carlist Wars between the moderate Queen Isabella and her uncle, the reactionary Infante Carlos. Disaffection with Isabella's government from many quarters led to repeated military intervention in political affairs and to several revolutionary attempts against the government. Two of these revolutions were successful, the moderate Vicalvarada or "Vicálvaro Revolution" of 1854 and the more radical la Gloriosa in 1868. The latter marks the end of Isabella's monarchy. The brief rule of the liberal king Amadeo I of Spain ended in the establishment of the First Spanish Republic, only to be replaced in 1874 by the popular, moderate rule of Alfonso XII of Spain, which finally brought Spain into a period of stability and reform.
The history of the English fiscal system affords the best known example of continuous financial development in terms of both institutions and methods. Although periods of great upheaval occurred from the time of the Norman Conquest to the beginning of the 20th century, the line of connection is almost entirely unbroken. Perhaps the most revolutionary changes occurred in the 17th century as a result of the Civil War and, later, the Glorious Revolution of 1688; though even then there was no real breach of continuity.
The Common Purse Agreement entitles the Isle of Man to a share in the United Kingdom's Customs and Excise revenues in return for being in customs union with the UK and not charging any import duties on goods from the UK, or that have been imported through the UK.
Goods and Services Tax in Singapore is a broad-based value added tax levied on import of goods, as well as nearly all supplies of goods and services. The only exemptions are for the sales and leases of residential properties, importation and local supply of investment precious metals and most financial services. Export of goods and international services are zero-rated.
Taxes in India are levied by the Central Government and the state governments. Some minor taxes are also levied by the local authorities such as the Municipality.
Taxation is one of the oldest functions of the Tanzanian government in running her affairs. By definition, a tax is a compulsory contribution from a person to the state to defray the expenses incurred in the common interest of all without any reference to the special benefits conferred. It is a compulsory contribution or payment for the support of governmental or other public purposes. The Tanzania Revenue Authority (TRA) is the government agency of Tanzania, charged with the responsibility of managing the assessment, collection and accounting of all central government revenue in Tanzania
The Competitive Tax Plan is an approach to taxation, suggested in the United States, that would impose a 10–15% value added tax (VAT) and reduce personal and corporate income taxes. The plan was created by Michael J. Graetz, a tax law professor at Columbia Law School and a former Deputy Assistant Secretary of the Treasury for Tax Policy. Graetz states that the plan would generate enough revenue to exclude families earning less than $100,000 of annual income from having to pay income taxes or file tax returns. The Competitive Tax Plan would provide a new payroll tax offset to replace the Earned Income Tax Credit, protecting low and moderate income workers from any tax increase under the new system. Under the initial proposal, households with an annual income of more than $100,000 would be taxed at a flat 25% rate and the corporate income tax rate would be reduced to 25%. Graetz argues that reducing the corporate tax rate "would make the United States an extremely attractive nation for corporate investments for both U.S. citizens and foreign investors". In 2013, Graetz presented an updated version of his plan for 2015.
The tax system of Andorra has evolved according to the country's economic activity and structure, and the tax bases have been expanded to optimally distribute the weight of the tax burden, going from an almost exclusively indirect tax system to a system with direct taxation that can be approved at the international level. Despite its taxes, Andorra ceased to be a tax haven for its neighboring countries years ago, and for the European Union and OECD recently.
In the history of Spain, the década moderada was the period from May 1844 to July 1854, during which the Moderate Party continuously held power.
The Liberal Union was a political party in Spain in the third quarter of the 19th century. It was founded by Leopoldo O'Donnell in 1858 with the intent of forging a compromise and taking a centrist position between the two forces that had hitherto dominated Spanish politics during the reign of Isabella II. On one side were the forces of conservative liberalism known as the doceañistas, arrayed around the Moderate Party. Among their leading figures were the queen mother Maria Christina of the Two Sicilies and General Ramón María Narváez. On the other were radical liberal exaltados or veinteañistas arrayed around the Progressive Party and the National Militia. Among their leading figures was General Baldomero Espartero. Both parties had fought on the same side in the Carlist Wars, but they had also at times fought against one another, and elements of the Moderate Party leaned toward absolute monarchy themselves. O'Donnell's intent was to bring together the non-absolutist Moderates and the less "exalted" (radical) Progressives and to occupy the political center. He first came forward with this program in September 1854 a few months after the end of the 10-year reign of the Moderates, but did not succeed in forming a party at that time.
In the history of Spain, the bienio progresista was the two-year period from July 1854 to July 1856, during which the Progressive Party attempted to reform the political system of the reign of Isabella II, which had been dominated by the Moderate Party since 1843 in the so-called década moderada. The Progressives were exaltados or veinteañistas, advocates of radical liberalism, in contrast to the conservative liberalism of the doceañistas or Moderates.
Ramón de Santillán González was a Spanish statesman who served as Minister of Finance and First Governor of the Bank of Spain.
Alejandro Mon y Menéndez was a Spanish politician and jurist who was prime minister of Spain in 1864, during the reign of Queen Isabella II.
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Goodsand Services Tax (GST) is an indirect tax used in India on the supply of goods and services. It is a comprehensive, multistage, destination-based tax: comprehensive because it has subsumed almost all the indirect taxes except a few state taxes. Multi-staged as it is, the GST is imposed at every step in the production process, but is meant to be refunded to all parties in the various stages of production other than the final consumer and as a destination-based tax, it is collected from point of consumption and not point of origin like previous taxes.
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