IN the two preceding chapters the attention of the reader has been called to the revenue of Cuba derived from custom-house receipts, which aggregates about $15,000,000 of the $26,000,000 required by the Spanish to pay the governmental expenses of the Island. Before ascertaining the way in which this money has been expended, and before making any suggestion as to possible division of revenue for the future, it may be well to pass briefly in review the other sources of revenue; and in this process the land, professional, and internal taxes come in for consideration. The Spanish Government estimated that the revenue from these combined sources for 1898-99 would be $7,783,150. This amount—when added to the customs, $14,705,000; the lotteries, $1,900,500; income from State property, $435,000; and miscellaneous revenue, $1,536,000,—practically completed the budget, as given in the opening of Chapter XV. Dismissing lotteries, the most important source of Cuban revenue has been from land and professional taxes, which should yield under normal conditions the following amount:

The following important statement in regard to the taxes of Cuba other than customs duties was prepared by JosÉ Anton Alcala, chief of the tax bureau of the Banco EspaÑol of Cuba, for Hon. Charles W. Gould, of the Department of Justice, and through the courtesy of Mr. Gould has been made part of this chapter:

“We have selected for our explanations the collection of taxes during the year 1894 to 1895 because it is the latest year in which taxes were collected with regularity and the accounts of the yearly production to the State duly verified. In our statements appear only the sums belonging to the public Treasury and by no means the total amount of receipts collected. A reason for this is that with the exception of the capital of the Island all receipts of taxes in Cuba include, as an additional tax, the sums which belong to the municipalities. Both taxes and the agreed expenses for collection are perceived jointly. We hope thus to render clearer which are the real taxes, in behalf of the Treasury. Otherwise it would be necessary, in order to form a judgment, to make in each case a deduction of the sums belonging to the municipalities, which are of 18 per cent. over the Treasury taxes on the city real estates, of 100 per cent. for the country estates, and of 25 per cent. for the industrial taxes. As expenses for collection, 5 per cent. on the total amount belonging to the Treasury is charged.

“Here is the rule followed to impose taxes for real-estate, city, and real-estate, country:

“On city estate, 25 per cent. on the amount of the rent which the proprietor declares to perceive is discounted, and over the remaining 75, 12 per cent. is imposed.

“On country estates, 2 per cent, is charged on the rent which the proprietor declares to perceive, without any previous discount.

“The Industrial Subsidy affects every citizen who should exercise any industry, profession, trade, art, or employ. A relation of them is made, being arranged by tariffs, classes, and numbers, with expression of the portion anyone ought to satisfy according to the last Regulation and Tariffs approved by the Government on 12th of May, 1893. These relations, named matriculas, are made every year.

“There are also the patentes or receipts of taxes on certain industries which satisfy their duties per annum and in advance. If the industrial stops business before the year is over, he has no right to claim the balance. To this class belong certain shops, hawkers (vendedores ambulantes), veterinary surgeons, etc. The amount to be paid in each case is unchangeable and it is fixed in a special tariff for the patentes.

“There are also receipts called of ‘occasional amounts.’ They include the receipts from the taxpayers who begin or stop business. As taxes as a rule are collected quarterly, these receipts are for the amount of time during the three months in which the taxpayer is a debtor to the Treasury.

“‘Occasional taxes’ and patentes amounted, for the whole Island, during the year 1894 to 1895, to the sum of $133,283.31 for the public Treasury. We do not include that total in our statements because it is collected only occasionally.

“It is to be borne in mind that the total of taxes is never collected in Cuba, and that there is always a deficit, which has been less since the Spanish Bank is the collector.

“Here is the total collection of taxes during the year 1894 to 1895:

“The last-mentioned province gives such a good result (notwithstanding the very great difficulties in collecting, over only five municipal districts which are on a very large area of land), because the capital of the province and the city of Nuevitas afforded a splendid revenue. In the province of Santiago de Cuba the collection is harder than in any other, on account of the scarce and bad roads and means of communication.

“In the lists of collection of ‘Industrial Subsidy’ in the province of Havana, there appears a great number of taxpayers who have not existed for many years and whom, nevertheless, the administration continues to keep on its records, because every new administrator is reluctant to confess that the taxpayers have decreased during his time of office.

“There are reasons to suspect that there are concealments of taxpayers in the city estates list. A new record (catastro), made by an intelligent and honest administration, would surely give a rise in the collection of taxes.

“The collection of taxes is in charge of the Banco EspaÑol de la Isla de Cuba, which has branches at Matanzas, Cardenas, Cienfuegos, Sagua, and Santiago de Cuba, and auxiliary offices at Puerto Principe and Pinar del Rio.

“The Island has been divided into groups of towns near those cities. The representatives of the Bank collect the taxes themselves in the cities where they live, and by delegates in the other towns.

“The actual contract signed by the Government and the Bank began in 1892-93, and holds good for ten years. The Bank receives as a commission 5 per cent. upon the total amount of the taxes to collect, presented by the public Treasury. As the Bank has no interference whatever, when the lists of taxes are made, it confines itself to collecting what the public Treasury declares in its own lists. The Bank, therefore, is merely an agent.

“City and country taxes are collected quarterly, semi-annually, and annually. Industrial Subsidy is only collected by quarterly receipts. Annual receipts are applied to the estates whose taxes do not exceed the sum of eight dollars a year; the semi-annual are for those that do not exceed the sum of ten dollars a year.

“The annual receipts and the receipts for the first six months of the year are collected jointly with the receipts for the first three months. The second six months’ receipts are collected with the second three months’. This explains why there is an increase in the collection of taxes in some places, during the first and second three months of each year. Some sudden increases happen also in some places in the ‘Industrial Subsidy’ during certain quarterly collections. This is due to the collection of receipts from some corporations which pay 12½ per cent. of their profits according to their balances. Railway companies pay 6¼ per cent. of their profits. State contractors pay ½ per cent.

“Taxpayers who do not pay their taxes at the time fixed for it are subject to the procedure called apremios, according to the rules of May 15, 1885, approved by the Government. When apremios are to begin, taxpayers are duly warned by mail, giving them time enough to pay their taxes before incurring trouble.

“Apremios are of three degrees: The first consists in an increase on the tax of 5 per cent.; the second consists in the seizure and afterwards the sale at public auction of chattel and live stock, besides a further increase of 7 per cent.; the third consists in the seizure and sale at public auction of real estate, besides a further increase of 9 per cent.

“These rules embody many details. They are obscure and complicated. According to them, long proceedings are made against morose taxpayers, a characteristic of Spanish bureaucracy.”