4 - Municipal revenue

Summary

Municipal finances in the colonial period

The study of municipal finance in the colonial period has no great relevance to this work, but a few details are called for. Generally, local revenue was very scant: the Crown was not sufficiently modest in fiscal matters to leave greater tax opportunities in the chambers, neither did the economic system of slave-owning latifundia favour the enrichment of the district exchequer, since the landowners had to levy taxes on themselves. On the other hand, the rudimentary nature of urban settlement, and the means of communication existing at that time, could do little to convince people of the need for a huge municipal budget.

‘Municipal taxes were levied’, Caio Prado Júnior informs us, ‘on meat on the hoof, carcasses, a tax on the scales in which all basic foodstuffs were weighed, a tax for the public cellar (or market). There were, too, checks on weights and measures, the return from fines imposed for the infringement of municipal laws, and finally the letting of “little shops” (casinhas) – in some places, Bahia for instance, they were called cabins (cabanas) – where essential products were sold.’ Also contributing to the revenue of the chambers was the granting of patents and privileges, concessions to sell aguardente, tax on the place of manufacture, tax for transport to the chamber's boat, navigation tax, privilege of priority in transport, special levies (tributes known as fintas) for specific projects like bridges, roads, public buildings, wells for common use, etc.