El cadastre de Catalunya (1713-1845): de la imposició a la fossilització

Abstract

The article analyses the process of establishment and imposition of the catastro tax in Catalonia, after the Bourbon victory in the War of the Spanish Succession (1702-1715), and its development until 1845. The new tax was formulated according to some accurate theoretical basis: the Absolute Sovereignty of the monarch, also in the fiscal field, and the determination that Catalonia was a defeated territory. Paradoxically, one of its nearest international references is the catastro tax in Milan, conducted by Austrian exiles; and its immediate historical precedent are the services approved in the Catalonian Courts in 1653, 1701-1702 and 1705-1706, which taxed the novelty by some concepts, and there were established some richness criteria in its distribution. The catastro tax, from its very beginning, raised an evident contradiction between its quota nature (supposedly equivalent to the Castilian impositions), and its will of being proportional and fair. Moreover, the new tax did not repeal the previous contributions, possessed by the monarchy, but the new indirect taxes were added. Although some confusions in the monetary movements between Catalonia and the Castilian Crown have provoked doubts about it, the study affirms that the new tax was around a million of pesos per year from the very beginning, fact that meant the increase of 7.3 of the services value voted in the last Catalan Courts. The article describes the serious difficulties in imposing the catastro tax, especially between 1718 and 1725; its consolidation, from 1726 on; and its process of becoming fossilized, which could be already noticed during the second half of the 18th century, caused by its own quota nature.