Spanish Theater Finds Porn Solution to Taxing Problem

MADRID, Spain—Madrid theater company Primas de Riesgo has found an unconventional way around paying the new exorbitant taxes levied on ticket prices. For those not paying attention, the country's conservative prime minister, Mariano Rajoy, has raised sales taxes on a number of everyday activities such as getting a haircut or going to a sporting event. But according to Bloomberg, "Cinema and theater were among the hardest-hit industries, with levies on ticket prices for both movies and live shows almost tripling to 21 percent from 8 percent." The tax resulted in public demonstrations, as well as a 26 percent drop in the number of live performances, causing Primas de Riesgo to take matters into its own hands, so to speak. Bloomberg adds, "Primas de Riesgo—a name that translates as risk premium—says it is registering as a porn distributor and selling 300 back issues of the 20-year-old porn magazine Gente Libre, or Free People. Each copy costs €16 and comes with a 'free' admission to the company’s new production of El Magico Prodigioso, a 17th century drama by Pedro Calderón de la Barca, at the New Alcala Theater in central Madrid." The magazines are subject to a tax, but at only four percent, it pales against the 21 imposed on tickets. It's an improvement, to be sure, but the company's director, Karina Garantiva, put the larger situation into perspective. “This is a stand against the government,” she said. “If we allow a super-reduced rate for porn and punitively tax works by Calderón, who is part of our national heritage like Shakespeare for the British, then as a society we’re lost.” That point was not lost on José Asensio, a vendor selling the porn mags for Primas de Riesgo at his sidewalk kiosk in central Madrid, who said of the tax, “Theater or cinema isn’t a physical need, but it is a spiritual one.”