After a small-scale private sector was allowed to emerge in Cuba and people began to quit their state jobs in order to work for themselves, President Fidel Castro introduced direct income taxes for the first time in 37 years, but not without receiving some complaints. "It's a form of injustice," commented Isidro Espana, a 40-year-old butcher who works 12 hours a day at a farmer's market in Havana, earning the equivalent of $6 to $8. Taxes are expected to increase steeply on June 1, but nobody knows by how much.

In a May Day address, Castro said the farmer's markets had created a class of "new rich" who were not helping to pay for Cuba's schools, medical services, and other state benefits. "I am sure that none of us sheds a tear because there are no millionaires" in Cuba, he said. "The tax is the path to collect the abusive excess of money that some persons have acquired."

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