Tax

The Spanish tax authority is called Hacienda, and the word means an estate: land with a house on it, the property somebody holds. Una hacienda in Latin America is exactly that; la hacienda pública is the public estate, everything the state owns and takes in — and from there comes the name of the ministry, and then of the office that writes to you. English never made the move: « the Revenue » is named after the money coming back in, and an estate stays private. A Spanish letter arrives from the estate, which is a very old way of saying the treasury.