HAVANA, Cuba.- According to information issued by the National Office of Tax Administration (ONAT), and collected in the edition of the newspaper Granma corresponding to June 29 (“Actions against high prices reveal a tax debt of more than 32 million pesos”), the maximum debtors with the State Budget until the end of June 16 have been those who declared personal income below what was actually obtained, and consequently did not pay the amount of taxes they owed.
Although no specific type of taxpayer is mentioned, it is not difficult to imagine that the tax authorities refer fundamentally to the alleged under-declarations of self-employed workers, which are calculated at around 23,500,000 pesos. If we add to this other debts, as well as hypothetical violations of the price policy set by the Government, the total amount owed to the Budget amounts to 32,500,000 pesos. According to ONAT, all that money is now going to be demanded from those branded as offenders.
We must clarify that the label of “underfiler” that the authorities endorse to the self-employed is, in most cases, a purely subjective decision, based on table calculations that do not take into account the specific realities of each private business. For example, in recent times, in the context of hyperinflation observed at all levels, ONAT inspectors have estimated that private owners earned a lot of money by selling their merchandise at high prices, and therefore require that there be a very high income figure on the affidavits of those owners. This is obviously an incomplete assessment, since it does not take into account whether these merchandise were finally sold, or are still on the shelves.
Debts for fines, which amount to about 7,400,000 pesos, must also be paid to the Budget, in addition to surcharges for late payment, which amount to 1,500,000 pesos. These surcharges as punishment for not paying in the time understood for it.
The fines imposed on the self-employed are due to the non-possession of the documentation established by the authorities, the outdated accounting records —in which they must record their income and expenses on a daily basis—, as well as the non-implementation of the accounting system for work on their own. Regarding the latter, it is a very difficult requirement for the majority of self-employed workers to meet, due to the complexity of modeling, and the lack of accounting knowledge on the part of many self-employed workers. However, the one that does not have it implemented and receives an inspection, is fined.
With regard to the so-called “control actions against price increases”, it can be said that they demonstrate the inexistence of a well-defined policy and, therefore, at the mercy of voluntarismin a matter of vital importance for the economy.
On the one hand, even several of the main figures of the Castro regime’s economic apparatus have recognized the uselessness of the price cap, causing products to disappear from the platforms. But, on the other hand, at the provincial and municipal levels there is no small repression against those who consider “abusive prices to the population”. Prices that, as we know, are fundamentally a consequence of the supply deficit and the increase in production costs, and not an unhealthy expression of the sellers.
In any case, it is undeniable that all these sanctions against these representatives of the non-state sector of the economy contribute to eroding the trust —if they had any— that these economic actors could feel for the nation’s rulers.
OPINION ARTICLE
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