[4] The Duke of Alba imposed a five percent alcabala in the Netherlands, where it played an important role in the Dutch Revolt.
[9] The 1726 edition agrees that the word comes from Arabic, and gives two possibilities, preferring the one that corresponds closely to the current view.
[11] The other tax of comparable importance was the diezmo, a tithe for the support of the Catholic Church, a substantial portion of which went to the Crown by virtue of agreements with the Holy See.
[1][4] There were numerous specific exemptions such as (from the time of Philip II onwards) horses and mules, hunting birds, and books.
For example, it appears the during the reign of Philip II, "small villages often paid as little as three-and-a-half per cent".
For example, a 19th-century Spanish legal dictionary says that in 1341 it was conceded to Alfonso for three years to defray the costs of the Siege of Algeciras (1342-1344), extended in 1345 to maintain the costs of frontier castles, further extended in 1349 for the siege of Gibraltar and in 1388 for the war with Portugal, finally becoming perpetual in 1393.
[4] Typically the capitulaciones (contracts) for those who set out to conquer territory for Spain gave them a certain period of exemption from the alcabala.
In the latter case, the viceroy of New Granada, told to increase revenues but apparently without any direct order from Madrid as to the means by which to do so, had given instructions to remove collection of the alcabala and the brandy monopoly from private tax-farmers and to have royal officials collect the tax directly.
[14] An increase to six percent in the late 1770s led to violence in the Viceroyalty of New Granada (northern South America) in 1780–1781 and in Arequipa (Southern Peru) in 1780.
[4] This was the same era in which disputes over taxes were a major factor leading to the American Revolution in what became the United States.