Taxes are returning to the public debate these days, regarding the tax reform that the Government is trying to carry out, for now with little success. Tax It is a word almost as uncomfortable as what it indicates. participle of the verb impose (synonym of force or of force), tax It reminds us all of precisely that, its obligation. Other synonyms of tax: assessmentwhich comes from late Latin assessmentwhich means discomfort; tributealso from Latin, from tributum; canonfrom Greek, through Latin…
Maybe it is contribution the synonym of tax that sounds better to us, or that seems less bad to us. In taxwe are the passive subject, the one who bears what from above, from power, they have decided to impose on us. In contribution It would seem that we become active subjects who have decided to contribute resources to the commons, to the public treasury, without someone superior forcing us to do so.
the word contribution was once much more common than the word tax. It is the one used, for example, in the Pepathe Constitution that was made in Cádiz in 1812. Its article 339 says: “The 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 we already had fiscal progressivity in our first Magna Carta, the principle that those who have the most contribute the most. That “faculties” of the Pepa is synonymous with flow ratesof economic capacity. That meaning still comes in Dictionary of the academies, although it is noted that it is out of use.
Fiscal progressivity was in the Pepathe Constitution that was drawn up in the Cortes of Cádiz during the Napoleonic invasion and that marked the arrival of the liberal revolution to the entire Hispanic world and of a liberal State in Spain. Liberal was then the opposite of absolutist and conservative. Now, two long centuries later, here are many who call themselves liberals want to end not only fiscal progressivity but also, if they could, taxes if they could.
Progressiveness comes from progresswhich according to the Dictionary is “action of moving forward” and also “advancement, advancement, improvement.” Also from progress comes progressivewhich is one of the most frequent epithets that the Government of Pedro Sánchez uses for itself. Regarding the tax reform it intends, the Government is trying to square the circle, an almost impossible task: an agreement in which there is room for both progressive forces much further to the left than the PSOE and forces so right-wing, so anti-progressive, that we could even call them retrogressors (of recoilthe antonym of progress).
If conventional wisdom says that futile efforts breed melancholy, the Government is likely to become even more melancholy soon.
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