Public revenues: taxes

Some of the needs that people experience can be met individually with their own resources. But there are other needs that cannot be met individually; they must be addressed collectively, by combining efforts through each individual contributing a portion of their income. This contribution is made primarily through the payment of taxes, in order to constitute what we might call a common fund to cover the cost of public goods and services, that is, those aimed at satisfying those needs that each person cannot meet alone.

Taxes could therefore be defined, in a first approximation, as those amounts of money that citizens are required by law to pay so that Public Administrations (the State, the Autonomous Communities, the Municipalities) have sufficient resources to finance the satisfaction of public needs, that is, the provision of public goods and services.