Taxes are coming back into the public debate these days, in connection with the tax reform that the government is trying to implement, for the moment with little success. Tax It’s a word almost as uncomfortable as what it indicates. participle of the verb impose (synonymous with force or force), tax This reminds us of precisely that, his obligation. Other synonyms for tax: assessmentwhich comes from late Latin assessmentwhich means discomfort; tributealso from Latin, tribute; cannonfrom Greek, through Latin…
Maybe it’s contribution the synonym of tax it seems better to us, or it seems less bad to us. In taxwe are the passive subject, the one who supports what from above, from power, they have decided to impose on us. In contribution It would seem that we are becoming active subjects who have decided to contribute resources to the common goods, to the public treasury, without anyone superior forcing us to do so.
the word contribution was once much more common than the word tax. This is the one used, for example, in the Pepathe Constitution drawn up in Cádiz in 1812. Its article 339 says: “Contributions will be distributed among all Spaniards in proportion to their faculties, without any exception or privilege. » As you can see, more than two centuries ago, our first Magna Carta already provided for tax progressivity, the principle according to which those who have the most contribute the most. That “faculties“of the Pepa is synonymous with flow rateseconomic capacity. This meaning always enters Dictionary academies, even if we see that it is out of use.
Budgetary progressivity was in the Pepathe Constitution which was drawn up in the Cortes of Cádiz during the Napoleonic invasion and which marked the arrival of the liberal revolution throughout the Hispanic world and of a liberal state in Spain. The liberal was then the opposite of the absolutist and the conservative. Today, two long centuries later, many of those who call themselves liberals want to end not only fiscal progressivity but also, if they can, taxes, if they can.
Progressivity comes from progresswhich according to the dictionary is “action of moving forward” and also “advancement, advancement, improvement”. Also from progress come progressivewhich is one of the most frequent epithets that the government of Pedro Sánchez uses for itself. When it comes to the tax reform it is considering, the government is trying to square the circle, an almost impossible task: a deal in which there is room for both progressive forces much further to the left than the PSOE and for forces so right-wing, so anti-progressive, that we could even call them retrogressors (of hindsightthe antonym of progress).
If the conventional wisdom is that wasted effort breeds melancholy, the government risks becoming even more melancholy soon.
