CUBA: COST OF LIVING: Services, Taxes

SERVICES On this topic I will speak only of some services, those that I consider fundamental.

Public transportation -The public transportation is one of the services that was most affected by the special period. So you can have an idea, before the year 1990 the buses in the City of Havana gave around 20,000 trips daily. In the year 1994 this decreased to around 3000. Today, trips per day is around 9000. But since the topic we are focusing on here is not transportation but expenses, let's concentrate on that. The cost of the bus is 0.20 or 0.40 pesos depending of the bus type. On the topic of the transportation I would like to add the bicycles. As all of you know with the advent of the special period, the bicycle was looked to as a means of transportation. For this reason thousands of bicycles were sold to workers at a price of 150.00 pesos and students at a price of 60.00 pesos. Telephone - The cost of the public telephone is 0.05 pesos every three minutes of call.  The national long distance calls have similar prices to those of the local calls.

Camel buses like this one were built to alleviate fuel shortages. A ride costs 0.20 pesos.   The regular bus costs 0.40 pesos.

Electricity - The cost of the electricity is 0.09 pesos the kW. Water - The payment that should be made depends on the quantity of people in the family nucleus. For a family of 7 people like mine the first 15 cubic meters in a month are paid at 0.25 pesos the cubic meter, the 10 next ones at 0.50 pesos and from there on goes increasing the price. It is very difficult to consume more than 15 cubic meters in the month. Also, 0.90 pesos monthly is paid for the use of the sewer system.   Gas - I use gas in container. For the seven persons in our household a gas container last approximately 15 days. A 20 pound container of gas costs 7.00 pesos. Funeral Services - All the funeral services are free, which includes, according to the Cuban customs, the viewing in the mortuary, the mortuary box, the transfer of the body to the cemetery, the burial as well as the burial place. The only paid services are those additional services which the family wants to receive. That would include the flowers, additional cars to transport the relatives or others to the cemetery, and other services.

Bicycles serve as another means to address the gasoline shortages.

TAXES In Cuba taxes are only charged to companies, to self-employed workers (whose number doesn't pass 200,000 in the whole country) and to artists who are completing contracts abroad and receiving revenues in foreign currencies. The rest of the people don't pay taxes.

As you can see, all these services don't have a cost that affects the revenues of a family.

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Text copyright 2000 J. Gutierrez Photos copyright 2000 C. O'Hara