Tax Culture in Totalitarianism

Tax Culture in Totalitarianism / Miriam Celaya

Posted on February 25, 2014



Approximately four years into the process of the reinstatement of

private labor in Cuba, official data acknowledges the existence of over

400,000 "self-employed" throughout the country, representing a

percentage of workers that pay taxes to the State, a force to be

reckoned with, given their great tax contribution to the State and the

jobs they generate, that is, close to half a million individuals

producing foods and services, offering income to others, and

contributing to the country's economy, supporting at the same time the

State and its many institutions which are just as parasitic.



The authorities, through their media, have been insisting on how

important it is for Cubans to gain experience and awareness regarding

the "tributary culture" (paying taxes), since the era of "state

paternalism" ended, along with its policies of subsidy; everyone should

strive to earn a living based on their own capacity and resources to

safeguard the revolution's social benefits, namely the supposedly

extraordinary standards of health and education that we enjoy on the Island.



Cynicism aside, the logic of the need for a tax culture is undeniable in

any moderately functional society. But in the case of Cuba – are we ever

going to stop being a "case"? — It appears that the tax culture that we

now aspire to, which was destroyed by the government with the

Revolutionary Offensive, is destined to flow in only one direction: from

those who provide the tax to the tax institutions, but never the other

way around.



Thus, a particular economic variant comes into play in virtue of which

the producers must assume the burden of a heavy tax to the State, but

the State is not required to report the amounts collected or the fate of

the funds collected.



Silent taxes



But there are longer standing taxes whose fate is also unknown. For

decades, Cubans have contributed taxes to the Sate-party-government

through a system of evaluations from multiple quasi-State organizations

that it created.



For example, if we use the official statistics, which indicate there are

about 3 million State employees whose average salary is 400 pesos, and

if we consider that they are affiliated with the Workers Center of Cuba

and, as such, they donate one work day each year destined for a

non-existent territorial militia, their contribution in this context

would be about $50 million annually — about 16.66 pesos per capita — not

counting what they pay in dues to their unions, which, paradoxically,

represent the interests of employers, who benefit both from what the

employees produce as well as what they pay into the unions.



Recently a friend and colleague speculated about the contributions of

the 800,000 members of the ruling and only party. Using an extremely

conservative estimate, my friend found an estimated 50 pesos per year

per militant, which produced $40 million annually in contributions to

the State.



In addition to these estimates, there are taxes collected from mass

organizations, such as the Committees for the Defense of the Revolution

and the Federation of Cuban Women, a minimal amount, but significant

because of large number of their affiliates, or the Young Communists

Union, "the revolution's youth vanguard", in which both students and

workers are active.



All these organizations, in turn, are supported by a monstrous (and

expensive) infrastructure ranging from office buildings, furniture,

fleets of vehicles, employees, materials and resources, even wages, fuel

costs and electricity, etc., producing absolutely nothing.



As for the huge bureaucratic apparatus of government and its repressive

forces, it is impossible to calculate their living costs. In this sense,

many Cubans, especially the so-called "self-employed", have begun to do

their accounts and they wonder if it is not too much of a contradiction

to help support the same system that plunders and represses and that, in

addition, continues treating them like lepers.



Because, at the end of the day, the tax culture is not — as the

government pretends — the imposition of a consciousness of servitude to

the Master State in order to keep supposed supreme ideals that, so far,

only benefit the State. The tax culture is born and consolidated from

the self-awareness that individuals acquire when they reach economic

independence, a road that sooner, rather than later, will have to start

to flow in both directions.



Cubanet, 20 February 2014, Miriam Celaya



Translated by Norma Whiting



Source: Tax Culture in Totalitarianism / Miriam Celaya | Translating

Cuba -

http://translatingcuba.com/tax-culture-in-totalitarianism-miriam-celaya/