As food shortages continue and inflation is skyrocketing, the communist Castro dictatorship thought this was a good time to impose a new 10% tax on food.
Cuba on Saturday announced a new 10 percent tax on retail food sales, as the country endures economic woes marked by rampant inflation.
The levy taking effect Monday will target self-employed people and small- and medium-sized companies in the retail food sector, said the decree published in the official government gazette. These sales were only allowed starting in August of last year as part of reforms in the communist run island.
Cuban economist Pedro Monreal wrote on Twitter that the new tax will probably have two effects: higher food prices and more inequality among the Cuban people.
Monreal said it will hurt “lower income households that spend a relatively higher percentage of their resources on food.”
The obvious goal here is to generate more revenue for a corrupt communist dictatorship that has run out of the cash it desperately needs to remain in power. This is why no one should ever expect any meaningful economic reforms from the Cuban regime.
By its very nature the Castro dictatorship is parasitical, living off the blood, sweat, labor, and money of others. True to its socialists principles, the Cuban regime produces nothing of value and can only survive by latching onto a host and feeding off it until it is bled dry.
This is socialism in action.
Doesn’t matter how irrational or inappropriate anything the dictatorship does may seem–it’s strictly based on what it believes will suit it, meaning “the people” are beside the point. They might as well be livestock.