“It is the worst time to take any measure aimed at eliminating the tax” of the 10% imposed by the Cuban government to dollar transactions, authorities said Thursday.
The first vice president of the Central Bank (BCC), Franciso Mayobre Lence, acknowledged that the objective of that measure, decided by Fidel Castro in 2004, “is to have an additional source of resources, because in the face of bankruptcy the costs increase and risks in that activity. “
“The conditions that led to the application of the lien have not changed, but have been getting thinner and are now at their most acute,” said the official during the Round Table television program where new measures for currency marketing were announced. Freely convertible (MLC) on the Island.
Mayobre Lence acknowledged that following the opening of new stores for sale in MLC last October, for which people had to open accounts associated with magnetic cards, the situation was complicated.
At that time, he said, Cubans with dollar wallet accounts tried to use those balances to transfer them to accounts associated with cards in order to access that market, the official site report said. Cubadebate.
For that reason, the BCC standardized all accounts in dollars last January, and the 10% tax is applied only when dollars are entered into the bank. When dollars are received from abroad through a bank transfer or remittance, that dollar is not taxed.
Mayobre Lence also assured that account holders have the right to withdraw cash from their bank balance, although if it is an amount that the branch lacks at that time, “notes, the bank manages the funds and calls to the client to deliver the extraction “.
Foreign currency is not part of the bank’s reserves, but circulates, because “the objective is to remit it abroad,” he acknowledged. Many Cubans have complained about the difficulties they face in extracting their dollars from bank accounts in their name.
Although during the Round Table it was recognized that the 10% tax is one of the aspects most questioned by viewers and Internet users, the Minister of Economy, Alejandro Gil Fernández, blamed the US for its existence.
“The culprit for such a lien on the dollar is the United States, it is the blockade of the United States, which prevents us from using this currency in international transactions,” said the headline.
Last November, after 15 years of the taxation, the official press assured that the validity of the measure responds to the Government’s interest in “discouraging the entry of USD in cash to the Cuban banking and financial system”, instead favoring Bank transfers in that currency.
Precisely since the end of 2019, the Cuban informal economy has faced increasing dollarization, due to the galloping shortage that the country suffers and the rumors of the imminent disappearance of the convertible peso (CUC).
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