putting gasoline

Charles Adams´ concluding observations regarding the unfortunate tax history and fate of the Hercules of Europe are worth mentioning. He starts by quoting a leading Oxford´s scholar on Imperial Spain: "Spanish industry was strangled by the most burdensome and complicated system of taxation that human folly can devise ... The taxpayer, overburdened with imposts, was entangled with a network of regulations to prevent evasion ... He was thus crippled at every step by the deadly influence of the anomalous and incongruous accumulation of exactions".

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According to Adams, "Spain tax story illustrates, above all else, what can happen from massive taxpayer discontent. Spain´s troubles probably started when the Council of Finance decided to ´turn the screw´on Spanish taxpayers. There is probably nothing more dangerous for a government to do than to crack down on taxpayers who defy a rotten tax system."

He concludes the suject quoting Thomas Jefferson who once "wrote a letter suggesting that a country needs a rebellion every 20 years or so (...). Applying this to taxation, massive taxpayer non-compliance or even anger with a tax system should be a warning to governments (...). The Spanish government (like most governments) interpreted tax defiance as a call-to-arms to enforce obedience. The resulting crack-down was about as effective as putting gasoline on a smouldering fire".

(Charles Adams, op. cit., p. 150)