Visual Project Management | Grant Work: Democracy + Communism: 2. Cuba: Communism Relived: Cuba_Paskova_029b

Retiree Lucilla Sulueta Cuesta, 66, gets her nails done by Liu Sanchez, 24, (not seen,) who works as a manicurist cuentaproprista (private business entrepreneur, whose practice wasn't allowed in Bulgaria and most of Eastern Europe until the collapse of communism,) in the Havana Vieja neighborhood of Havana, Cuba. Since privatization was first allowed within Cuba's state-owned socialist system in the mid-70s, the requirements for those allowed to be cuentapropistas have fluctuated from restrictive to less so - the latter in the Raúl Castro era of 2008 and beyond. But a clear disincentive to private business expansion remains: if payroll surpasses 5 employees or a $2,000 yearly profit, taxes increase disproportionately (from 15% to 50% in case of the latter.)

Retiree Lucilla Sulueta Cuesta, 66, gets her nails done by Liu Sanchez, 24, (not seen,) who works as a manicurist cuentaproprista (private business entrepreneur, whose practice wasn't allowed in Bulgaria and most of Eastern Europe until the collapse of communism,) in the Havana Vieja neighborhood of Havana, Cuba.  

Since privatization was first allowed within Cuba's state-owned socialist system in the mid-70s, the requirements for those allowed to be cuentapropistas have fluctuated from restrictive to less so - the latter in the Raúl Castro era of 2008 and beyond. But a clear disincentive to private business expansion remains: if payroll surpasses 5 employees or a $2,000 yearly profit, taxes increase disproportionately (from 15% to 50% in case of the latter.)