The Spanish company Ferrovial has announced that, unless the shareholders vote against it, it will move its tax headquarters to the Netherlands in a move that, in addition to promoting its internationalization, seeks a more favorable tax and regulatory climate. By his commercial and bourgeois vocationThe Netherlands has always displayed a more permissive fiscal policy, even since its founding as a nation hostile to Spain.
When the revolt took place in the Netherlands in 1572 that would give rise to the United Provinces, one of the main reasons for the local lords to rebel against the King of Spain, sovereign of these territories, was the increase in taxes embodied by the royal Governor, the Grand Duke of Alba. And it is that, despite what has been said about religion or nationalism, the economic context was crucial to understand the secessionist process.
After the Castilian general succeeded in quelling the rebel forces led by Guillermo de Orange, the most representative figure in the northern provinces of Zealand and the Netherlands, it seemed that the uprising was a thing of the past. However, the rise in taxes, the repression of the Court of Riots and the tireless propaganda work of Orange revived the war in 1572 and took it to a new level.
In a context of natural catastrophes, bad harvests and floods, the tax increase caused one of the first strikes in history between merchants who, thanks to Orange propaganda, convinced the people that the money collected served to impoverish the Countries Low and enrich Spain. Nothing is further from reality; as he points out Geoffrey Parker in ‘Spain and the rebellion of Flanders’ it was the Iberian Peninsula that borne the great expenses of the empire. Fernando Álvarez de Toledo, who enjoyed reading Tacitus in Latin and counted the poet Garcilaso de la Vega among his best friends, understood the need for fair taxes better than the Flemish oligarchy.
The advanced Castilian tax
Hence after a long series of deliberations between Alba, the Treasury Council and the provincial States concluded the need to establish a tax of around 10% on all commercial transactions with the exception of the last one (the point where the merchandise reached the consumer), which in Castilla was called alcabala, to overcome the ruinous financial situation of the Flemish treasury. The final tax, after undergoing relentless negotiations with the oligarchy, was a relatively modest tribute that produced substantial income without causing great privation to anyone.
Even so, it could not be applied. “It was a less regressive tax than most 16th century taxation, in the sense that the burden would be shared by all. The poorest would probably have paid more than fair, but they would not have had to pay everything, and the rich were to some extent protected, by their perpetual nature, from the traditional assaults on their capital, “explains William S. Maltby in his biography dedicated to the Grand Duke of Alba on a much fairer tax than Orange would apply on the rival side.
Ferdinand Alvarez of Toledo, III Duke of Dawn, by Antonio Moro
From this point it was impossible for Felipe II to recover order in these territories. After a very long conflict rich in costly sieges, Spain and the dutch republic they had to sign a truce in 1609, which was a way of recognizing the independence of the new state. In addition, the Dutch will take advantage of the truce to harass the possessions of the Spanish Empire in America and the Pacific, especially those belonging to Portugal, creating a company with private capital but state vocation.
Dutch attacks against the iberian colonies in the Pacific they became a constant for the so-called East India Company. In 1614 ten ships of the East India Company devastated maritime traffic and the coastal towns of the Philippines. In Africa, enemy raids were just as frequent. The Dutch founded a fort at Moree, near the Portuguese base at Sao Jorge da Mina. And in America, the clashes were directed at the Portuguese possessions in the Amazon basin and the Guyana coast, since they were worse defended than the strictly Castilian areas.
A slave company
The Dutch East India Company, with the exclusive right to trade east of the Cape of Good Hope, would be in charge of managing the trade monopoly in the eastern territories for several centuries. This private company could enter into international agreements and treaties, administer justice, build forts and recruit soldiers in the name of the republicbut he did not have among his priorities the well-being of the population.
The company developed an aggressive monopoly on the clove, nutmeg, and pepper trade, a trade that soon extended to tea leaves, coffee beans, and sugarcane stalks, as well as the export of slaves. It is estimated that close to a million people were used by this company in the slave trade.
The company paid lousy wages, treated its employees badly and even worse the millions of people it governed around the world. The objectives of making profits at any price were incompatible with the welfare of these populations and with their own political problems. This was evident in cases such as the Batavia port massacre (present-day Jakarta)when ten thousand Chinese workers, many of them from local sugar mills, were savagely massacred by company soldiers.
After decades of great profitability, the company finally fell victim to corruption in its ranks, which had come to give rise to the expression “perished by corruption” (abbreviated in Dutch is a pun on the initials VOC). The company announced bankruptcy and was dissolved on December 31, 1799.