Travel Reference
In-Depth Information
to make more revenues from sales. It was small wonder, therefore, that
a new form of smuggling arose in the Río de la Plata: the illegal trade in
Paraguayan and Brazilian tobaccos.
Not only did tax rates go up, but the collection of taxes also was
rationalized. Previously, so-called tax farmers (middlemen who had pri-
vate contracts with the government) had assumed the responsibility of
collecting taxes, and these individuals were often local merchants who
received tax payments from shopkeepers and producers in exchange
for a percentage of total collections. Such a decentralized system con-
tributed to a great deal of evasion and preferential treatment, so an
important element of the Bourbon reforms came in centralizing the
collection of taxes.
Now a new group of professional bureaucrats connected to the
administrative intendancy system assumed the burden of collecting
taxes from the tax farmers. Again, Spaniards gained: The bureaucrats
of the Intendancy were Spaniards, whereas many of the old tax farmers
 
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