Spanish tax reform of 1845

The Spanish tax reform of 1845 (approved in 1844) made major changes to the tax system of Spain, and established the basis for a system that continues to this day.

In the summer of 1843, a military coup led by the Moderate generals Francisco Serrano, Ramón María Narváez and Juan Prim removed the Progressive leader Baldomero Espartero from his position as regent, ending a three-year Progressive ascendancy. Queen Isabella II, who had just reached the age of 13, was declared to have reached the age of majority, ending the regency. Within a year, this led to the beginning of the década moderada, ten years of rule by the Moderates.

The executive council that came to power in 1844, presided over by Narváez, undertook a tax reform. The reform was proposed by a commission whose key figure was the brilliant, but logical and orderly, Ramón de Santillán, and was carried into effect by Finance Minister Alejandro Mon. This reform broke the tax system of Antiguo Régimen and established a basis for taxation in Spain that remained intact to the end of the 19th century, and most of which continued well past that date, some into the 21st century.

The prior system had separate tax regimes in the former Kingdom of Aragón, in Navarre, in the Basque Country and in the rest of Spain. It involved a great variety of taxes, most of them dating from the Middle Ages.

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