Reflexiones sobre la experiencia en la financiación autonómica española: qué repetir y qué evitar

Laburpena

In this work we present a description of thirty years of tax decentralization in Spain, in four separated periods and explaining territorial differences. A reflect about possible wise moves and mistakes is presented according to the Spanish experience. The main faults have been the initial lack of correspondence between regional expenditure and finance tools, the consideration of initial cost of the services, the confusion between solidarity and sufficiency, a weak institutional network, absence of transparency, and interference of political matters. As the main strong points we highlight the close adjustment of the process to the theoretical principles, the fact that the increase in autonomous expenditure has been accompanied by increases in both, tax pressure and decision capacity on tax rules, the achievement of growing and convergence, and also the consolidation of Spanish democracy. Finally, some characteristics be taken into account for the decentralization in Latin American countries are detailed.