The financial activities of all public administrations are regulated and contemplated within financial law.
Financial law is a specialty within public law aimed at regulating the activities and financial resources of public administrations and States . The dynamic aims to raise money (through taxes ) and invest or allocate it for collective well-being purposes (feeding a system of good quality public services , for example).
Tribute, budget, public spending, public debt y tax monopoly son apenas algunos de los conceptos que adquieren protagonismo al prestar atención a las características y a los alcances del financial law.
Purposes of financial law
The purposes of financial law are several. Firstly, it aims to regulate procedures focused on the entry of banknotes and their destination within the public treasury .
It is important, in this framework, to consider that there are no rules in this area that cover the financial actions of legal entities or individuals in the private sector. It is state , related to public administration, the sphere of financial law that is addressed, jointly, with the so-called tax law .
Another issue that deserves to be taken into account is the range of disciplines that coexist connected to the aforementioned branch. How public assets are managed, for example, is an object of interest for public assets law , while tax law (also known as fiscal law ) is concerned, with legal regulations, with systematizing the circuit that leads to collecting, managing and control taxes. Budgetary law , meanwhile, focuses on everything related to public spending and the general budgets of each State.
What is considered public spending ? The amount of money allocated to multiple areas and works that, depending on the amount that appears in the budget presented by a State , can be invested by order of the Executive Branch in a certain period of time. It is essential to keep in mind that these expenses, which must be distributed equitably within the public administration , are audited and controlled from said official budget.
Public income , on the other hand, arises from taxes , public debt , property income and money collected through fines and punitive sanctions.
Bonds, stocks and similar financial products can be traded on the stock exchange.
Financial regulation
Financial regulation is a way of subjecting financial institutions (which, for the most part, are government supervised, whether banking entities , pension fund companies , investment funds , etc.) to compliance with a series of regulations and requirements for thus ensuring that the financial system is intact. In general, the person in charge of regulating this is the public administration using some entity or agency of the government in office.
On Spanish soil, to describe a case for reference, the securities markets are inspected and regulated by an organization known as the National Securities Market Commission (CNMV) . Within the Argentine surface, everything related to the management and promotion of the capital market is the task of those who make up the National Securities Commission .
It is impossible to delve into the concept of financial regulation without referring to banking law , which specializes in the regulations created to regulate the operation of all financial institutions .
Divisions of financial law
The divisions of financial law were already mentioned above. They are budgetary, patrimonial and tax law . Below we will delve into the last branch listed in order to focus attention on the characteristics of the taxes .
In general, three tax sources are distinguished: rates , special contributions and taxes . Paying taxes is an obligation that each citizen has so that, with that collection, the State invests in security, health, education, etc. When a taxpayer does not comply with this commitment (that is, does not pay taxes in a timely manner) and carries out maneuvers to hide assets and/or income with the sole purpose of harming the public administration , tax evasion occurs. Another very widespread strategy on an international scale is tax avoidance , which is resorted to (appealing, for example, to tax havens) to minimize or avoid tax burdens.
Government planning is essential to keeping a country's finances in check. Every State must present a budget, reflecting available income and investment plans.
Technological resources applied to finances
Technological resources applied to finance are used daily by millions of people around the world. In Argentina , for example, the Central Bank promotes financial innovation with the intention of continuing to revolutionize the financial system with digitalization and other strategies designed to streamline processes and reduce costs.
Key, in this context, are the proposals arising from the field of FinTech (also known as financial technology ). These modern solutions or tools cover insurance , real estate services and various services ( Blockchain ), investments , financing ( crowdfunding ) and payments and accounts ( cryptocurrencies ).
Digital banking (an instrument from which it is possible to carry out operations such as electronic payments and money transfers) has long enjoyed undeniable popularity, adding more and more users in various corners of the planet.