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BESCANO, Spain — A Spanish movie theater is getting around increased taxes charged on theater tickets by instead selling high-priced carrots and giving the tickets away for free.
Quim Marcé, who owns the theater in Bescanó, had the idea while trying to figure out how his theater would survive a ticket sales tax hike imposed this summer by the Spanish government. Theater tickets see a 21-percent tax, up from 8 percent before the new tax measures became effective. Carrots, deemed a staple, are taxed at only 4 percent.
Marcé told NPR he made the decision because he was worried the increase in ticket prices would leave his 300-seat Bescanó Municipal Theater empty in a city where one in four residents is unemployed.
"We said, 'This is the end of our theater, and many others.' But then the next morning, I thought, we've got to do something, so that we don't pay this 21 percent, and we pay something more fair," he said.
Theatergoers in Bescanó can purchase a carrot for $16 — "very expensive for a carrot," Marcé notes — and are then admitted to the theater for free.
Spanish media have taken to calling the plan "La rebelión de las zanahorias" — the Carrot Rebellion — and even the town's mayor has gotten behind it. But some Spanish economists say Marcé is going too far.
Fernando Fernandez, an economist at Madrid's IE Business School, said "this is called tax evasion."
"This means that people who do pay taxes have to pay a larger tax. And this makes it more difficult to get the fiscal target," he said. "So we have to denounce this just as much as we denounce the filthy rich who don't want to pay taxes. We should do the same."
Marcé's move highlights the desperation of business owners impacted by the recession, as theaters' incomes are down 30 percent in Barcelona alone since the value-added tax increases took effect on Sept. 1. And in Spanish movie theaters, 20 percent of screens are expected to go blank by summer 2013.
The increase in VAT is part of a package of austerity measures and economic reforms meant to help the country battle an economic recession in which nearly 25 percent are unemployed, including more than half of people under 24.
The country, at the core of Europe's debt crisis, has seen widespread protests as the measures have gone into effect.
Spanish citizens were part of hundreds of thousands of European citizens who who have gone on strike, some taking to the streets to show their displeasure at the measures.
Protests in some towns, including Madrid and Barcelona, have turned violent, with protestors in the streets clashing with riot police.
