Worries on wheels

By Roberto G. Peralo
From La Joven Cuba

To try to narrate and describe everything that happened during that hour-long ride would be really long. And the dynamic of modern living forces us to deal with our ability to synthesize, – as far as the transmission of ideas is concerned – especially when dealing with the internet.

I’ll focus on the subject that drew my attention while dialoguing with the taxi driver. Not that I don’t have opinions of my own, but I will omit my own considerations on the topic.

The owner of the 1956 Chevrolet was in his 30s; they called him Migue. I was heading to the Jagüey Grande municipality, a place renowned for its huge orange and grapefruit plantations.

Nowadays the fastest and most effective way of transportation lies in the private sector where the law of supply and demand prevails. The car, originally designed to carry six passengers, had been modified to cram nine.

I started to converse with that young man, who nonchalantly answered every question I pitched at him. I’m always curious about social phenomena, and those specifically connected with economic processes triggered the dialogue.

How much fuel do you consume on this car per trip? 10 liters of oil, he answered. I delve deeper: How many trips a day? An average of four roundtrips a day, depending on the number of passengers. I figure it out in my head: 9 passengers by $20.00 pesos (CUP, or Cuban non convertible pesos) by four trips a day equal $720.00 CUP. That’s my monthly salary; I won’t go into the many things that crossed my mind! But my worries were just beginning.

Following an economist’s mind frame I asked the following predictable question, attempting to bring expenses and profits together: How much do you pay in taxes per month? $800.00 CUP, he answered.

How much for oil? Between $8.00 and $9.00 CUP a liter, depending on where I “get” it. The “get” word sounded weird but I began to round the numbers. Today the price of a liter of oil in all gas stations is $1.10 convertible pesos (CUC), which represents $27.50 CUP in the official exchange rate.

Four trips a day, ten liters per trip, means $320.00 CUP, and a clean $400.00 CUP profit. If he works the 30 days in a month, it’s $12 000.00 CUP. Minus taxes, a figure of
$11 200.00 CUP in profits. My first conclusion: In one month he’ll take home what I earn in two years.

I go on with my questioning: Is it very difficult for you to “get” the oil? Very calmly he answers: It’s not so difficult, you can “get” it in any gas station. You ask the employee if he has fuel (that could be the password, I tell myself), you have to wait for a big truck to come in and that can take sometimes the entire day.

I really did not understand, so I persist in questioning: Well, big trucks don’t take their whole assignment in fuel, so they leave a certain amount for the employee who buys it from him at 5.00 CUP per liter.

This, I admit, is state assigned fuel, already paid for and supposedly delivered, but that remains in the hands of the gas station employee. Migue tells me that a new control system has been put in practice, but there’s always space for a trick or two.

What we do, he explains, is to wait by the gas station for one of these big trucks to come to get its fuel, and in we go and get ours at the same time, though sometimes at the price of the many hours of waiting.

I was impressed, above all, by his admission that all cars in this type of business do the same thing. I ask him why he takes such risks instead of buying the gas directly form the state.

Are you nuts? he retorts. The other way there’s no business at all, unless we ask three times the current fare, which is abusive. Sometime ago inspectors started to ask for the purchase ticket and those who didn’t have it were fined $500.00 CUP. We were forced to buy fuel legally and to raise prices. People started to complain to the government, which then forced them to stop fining us and the private taxi drivers.

And then, when the time comes to pay taxes, how do you account for expenses in fuel? I asked.

Well, he says, I have to declare two short trips a week and declare $2 000.00 CUP a month profit, for which I pay $800.00 CUP in taxes.

But those in the Tax Administration Office don’t realize that there’s fraud being committed?

Everybody knows; they even help you to make the numbers fit to assure that you are making a profit so that they can then collect their taxes.

I realized that this young man was not very learned about the tax regulations. He was not able to offer more details in spite of my asking him to be more specific. The alarming thing about this story, though, is that it’s far from exceptional, all drivers are forced to do the same. And even more worrisome is the fact that this black market involving fuel and fiscal fraud is done with the help of the state.

It leads me to wonder who’s in charge here…