alcabala

The notion of alcabala comes from Hispanic Arabic alqabála. The term refers to tax that, in the Antiquity, the sellers had to pay in a contract of sale and the two parts in one swap contract.

The alcabala, therefore, was a tribute that taxed a commercial activity. It was about a percentage of the sale price that the person had to pay to the treasury.

At a general level, the alcabala was a assessment universally applicable. However, it was common for exceptions to be granted, so that the application of the tax was not so strict in practice.

On Castile, the collection of the alcabalas was imposed from the Courts of Burgos from 1342. The intention was to solve the campaign of Algeciras. At first it was applied in Burgos and then spread to the rest of the localities from Leon and Castile.

As it is an indirect tax, its form of collection it was changing. The alcabalas were collected through collectors, by heading and by leasing to individuals.

In its first implementations, the alcabala was local and administered by the councils, the neighborhood assemblies that were involved in the government of their localities. The councils existed in the Iberian Peninsula during the High Middle Ages, in the kingdoms belonging to Christianity. Already from Eleventh century the local alcabala can be evidenced, and it is estimated that it was created taking as an example some older example from Muslim Spain.

Some experts on the subject believe that the alcabala could have arisen in the Roman empire and have remained in force in the Visigothic period. With respect to its characteristics at a technical level, and based on the most solid evidence of its oldest use, this tax began by calculating on the basis of "alienated things" for 5 percent of their value; later on, the percentage doubled, although mainly in theory, since in practice it used to be lower.

Currently the alcabala continues to exist. On Peru, the alcabala tax is levied on real estate sale and purchase operations. The buyer of the property is the one who must pay it, being the tax base the transfer value.

The legislation Peru contemplates several exceptions. The first sale of the property made by a construction company and transfers due to death do not pay the alcabala, to mention two cases.

According to the dictionary of the Royal Spanish Academy (RAE), on the other hand, in Venezuela and in Colombia It is known as alcabala police post that is located at the exit of a highway or a city.

It is important to make a clarification regarding the terms tax Y assessment, so necessary when defining alcabala. The former should not be confused with your homophone Record: Homophone words sound exactly the same way, even though their spelling and meaning are different. Nor should we make the mistake - quite common, by the way - of labeling the word assessment on the penultimate syllable, since it is grave ending in N.

Regarding its etymology, we can observe that this term derives from Hispanic Arabic al-qabala, which can be translated as "the contract, the tax that was arranged with the treasury. In turn, this arose in Arabic speak it, which is a "fishing net." Other words that share the origin are the following:

* gabela: a tax that must be paid to the State;

* alcabalero: the person who must collect the alcabalas, that is to say that his job consists in the activity of collecting the tribute;

* alcabalatorio: the book in which the rules about the collection and distribution of the alcabalas are recorded.