Ben the Baker on Spanish Taxes

Although it was difficult if not impossible for a foreigner to work legally in Spain, they were encouraged to go into businesses that would provide employment for Spaniards. One could own a book store, a restaurant-bar, a souvenir shop. Ben, a burned out Philadelphia attorney, owned a bakery outside of Torremolinos. He specialized in gourmet breads that he sold to various hotels.

Oddly enough, he could do this because he had purchased a centuries old house with an attached centuries old bakery equipped with a centuries old oven. It looked like don Quixote’s breakfast rolls might have come out of that oven.

Bread was baked on a huge stone wheel inside the oven that rotated by means of a hand crank. The wheel was around four inches thick and at least ten feet across, perhaps twelve. Ben’s bakers loaded the loaves that needed the longest time to bake on the inside of the wheel, gradually turning it as they loaded more loaves. When the wheel was fully loaded, then with a few more turns baked loaves were unloaded on a first-in-first-out basis. The heat came from an olive wood fire that had been started early in the morning. Set scientifically, the fire gradually burned itself out and no refueling was necessary. And the whole thing happened without computers.

It happened without the use of fuel oil, either. And that’s where the gourmet bread comes in. We lived in Spain during the last year of Francisco Franco’s life and the first year of Juan Carlos’ reign. During that time, food was available to everyone by means of subsidized bread, milk, and fish. People of very limited means could still put food on the table and didn’t have to watch their families starve. It kept them from slipping across the border to France to work as illegal aliens. Also, wine was cheap and everyone seemed to have a television set. There were only two or three channels, but it was something. I’ve always felt that Franco kept the lid on things and there were no revolutions because everybody had something to lose. The subsidized bread had to be baked by bakers who used government subsidized fuel oil to heat their ovens. They baked the bread and sold it at a loss or at best broke even. Since Ben didn’t use the fuel oil, he didn’t have to bake the cheap bread.

But Ben still paid the price. Olive wood was very expensive fuel. He thought it was a trade off.

And Ben had to pay his taxes. Spanish taxes and American taxes have a curious difference. In the U.S. everyone knows who’s going to pay. We just don’t know how much, and the government couldn’t say within billions of dollars just how much money they’re going to get. In Spain, the government knew to the peseta, but they didn’t know who was going to pay. But, then, they didn’t care, either.

Here’s how it worked. Each year the government would tell the bakers’ of Torremolinos sindicato how much they were going to cough up for taxes. The sindicato would then meet to determine how the tax would be paid and who would pay it. Ben said he always attended that meeting. Otherwise his colleagues might vote that he pay it all. It was the same way with all the other sindicatos in Spain. "Here's the revenue service hat, amigos. Fill 'er up."

He baked great bread, by the way.