The Hemisphere: Society Rag

The proposal, as leaked from the office of Finance Minister Rufo Lopez Fresquet, was so zany that the Cuban press thought somebody was pulling its leg: anyone mentioned in the Cuban social register or newspaper society pages would have to pay a tax for the honor. The bite would be $1 per mention, plus $1 for each flattering adjective. Titles of nobility would be taxed $100, and photographs $10 per column inch. For collecting the tax, the newspapers would be allowed to keep 25% of the take. Going along with the gag, Prensa Libre used up seven adjectives in describing Minister Lopez Fresquet (who is in the Havana Social Register) as a great economist and intellectual, and then noted: “Comrade Rufo now owes $7.”

Clad in a flowing sports shirt as sign of his membership in a classless revolution, Lopez Fresquet turned up at his office and ended the joke. “I’m dead serious about this tax,” he said. The law will discourage “conspicuous consumption” and besides, might net $5,000,000 a year. Cuban society editors, who have always collected an under-the-table fee for social puffs, will lose a profitable racket.