Law, What Law?
Spaniards are at heart anarchists. They don't trust government or government officials, even those they've voted into office. I suppose it's because of history. Those who have fashioned the laws throughout the years have always had their own interests at heart, not the common people's. History has made people leery of new proposals set out by the government. If they're handed something they take it suspiciously, waiting for it to blow up in their faces. They're right, sometimes. For example, to buy a new car there are incentives from the government. I think the latest was fifteen hundred euros if you also turn in a car twelve years or older. But at the end of the year, you have to declare those fifteen hundred euros as income and pay taxes on it. The bomb had an egg in it.
Since so many incentives from the government come with hidden bombs, the carrot has never quite taken in Spain. The stick is better understood. And in the understanding, side paths are taken to avoid it. For example, in the center of Santiago de Compostela the old buildings are protected. Any rehabilitation has to replace old materials with new materials of the same kind. A house that has old wood windows has to have them replaced with new wood windows and not PVC windows that would last forever. However, many homeowners and construction companies find ways around the rules and regulations. My husband once worked for a company rehabilitating an old house in Santiago. They had to replace the wooden floors. The owner didn't want to touch those floors for the rest of his lifetime, so he pacted with the company to secretly put in concrete. No building inspector showed up, but if one had, the owner would simply have offered an incentive to the inspector. And that would be that.
Traffic laws are the laws everyone repeatedly breaks every time they get behind the wheel. Fifty kilometers per hour on a straight road with nothing in sight? Oh, please. Seatbelt? To only be in the car five minutes along back lanes? Signal my turn? With no one behind me? It's not worth the bother. Then there's the undercover economy. Why declare income and pay taxes on it when that leaves your income at next to nothing and the elected officials are just going to put your money in their Swiss bank accounts? In 2013 the undercover reached around 253 billion euros, or just over 24 percent of the Gross National Product. But what incentive does a Spaniard have to comply with the law when their elected officials are the first to break the law? A citizen who is discovered with undeclared earnings of maybe a thousand euros can face fines and penalties so stiff that he may be forced to sell everything he owns to be able to pay. A mayor or congressman who has misappropriated millions of euros from the public treasury gets a paltry fine that won't affect his life overmuch and can then leave public office to sit on the board of a large company earning thousands of euros a month.
With corruption dripping like honey and money sticking to fingers throughout government people say the law is flexible. So they bend it enough to get around it. Yes, that means public services will suffer. But the example lies with those who rule. If they tout the message, "Hacienda somos todos" (We are all the Revenue), then they shouldn't exclude themselves.
Since so many incentives from the government come with hidden bombs, the carrot has never quite taken in Spain. The stick is better understood. And in the understanding, side paths are taken to avoid it. For example, in the center of Santiago de Compostela the old buildings are protected. Any rehabilitation has to replace old materials with new materials of the same kind. A house that has old wood windows has to have them replaced with new wood windows and not PVC windows that would last forever. However, many homeowners and construction companies find ways around the rules and regulations. My husband once worked for a company rehabilitating an old house in Santiago. They had to replace the wooden floors. The owner didn't want to touch those floors for the rest of his lifetime, so he pacted with the company to secretly put in concrete. No building inspector showed up, but if one had, the owner would simply have offered an incentive to the inspector. And that would be that.
Traffic laws are the laws everyone repeatedly breaks every time they get behind the wheel. Fifty kilometers per hour on a straight road with nothing in sight? Oh, please. Seatbelt? To only be in the car five minutes along back lanes? Signal my turn? With no one behind me? It's not worth the bother. Then there's the undercover economy. Why declare income and pay taxes on it when that leaves your income at next to nothing and the elected officials are just going to put your money in their Swiss bank accounts? In 2013 the undercover reached around 253 billion euros, or just over 24 percent of the Gross National Product. But what incentive does a Spaniard have to comply with the law when their elected officials are the first to break the law? A citizen who is discovered with undeclared earnings of maybe a thousand euros can face fines and penalties so stiff that he may be forced to sell everything he owns to be able to pay. A mayor or congressman who has misappropriated millions of euros from the public treasury gets a paltry fine that won't affect his life overmuch and can then leave public office to sit on the board of a large company earning thousands of euros a month.
With corruption dripping like honey and money sticking to fingers throughout government people say the law is flexible. So they bend it enough to get around it. Yes, that means public services will suffer. But the example lies with those who rule. If they tout the message, "Hacienda somos todos" (We are all the Revenue), then they shouldn't exclude themselves.
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| "See? See how among you there are also corrupt people? Scandalous. What a shame!" |
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