Finance Minister Cristóbal Montoro has been raising taxes in Spain since being appointed to office and he is going to maintain this strategy until either Rajoy makes him stop or the country's business sectors fall one after the other.
Before the summer began the Council of Ministers approved a tax hike on alcohol and tobacco. The Finance Ministry backed the decision on grounds that it needs funds for the Entrepreneur Law. But this is a strange argument, and Montoro is not considering that an increase on alcohol and tobacco taxes could cause serious problems for the summer travel season that just started.
In an attempt to help the PYMES, Montoro has handed them a dilemma: these small hospitality businesses will have to take on higher taxes on the products they sell or risk losing their clientelle who balk at suddenly higher prices.
