An official statement compiled in 1844 lists a few of the taxes, and gives some interesting figures as to the amounts collected. The Cubans were taxed six per cent. of the selling price, on all sales of real estate, or slaves, and on sales at auction and in shop. They were also taxed on Papal Bulls, and there were brokers' taxes, cattle taxes, shopkeepers' taxes, tax on mortgages, tax on donations, tax on cockfighting, taxes on grants of crosses, insignia or use of uniforms; taxes on promissory notes or bills of exchange, taxes on municipal taxes, taxes on the death of all non-insolvent persons, taxes on investments in favor of the clergy; the church did not escape, for there were taxes on the property of the Jesuits. There were also taxes on sales of public lands, taxes on the establishments of auctioneers, and taxes on everything sold, water canal taxes, and customhouse duties on imports and exports and the tonnage of vessels. Cubans were not only taxed on the sale of lands, but of course on the land itself, and there were state and municipal taxes, and they were taxed on their cattle and all animals whether they kept them or sold them. Passports were taxed, and as Cuba had a large transient population this tax brought in a goodly sum. Public offices were privately sold to the highest bidder. There were taxes on the sale of archives to notaries for the recording of deeds. Small fines were being constantly imposed by grafting officials, and the Captain-General's tribunal exacted a special fee, which brought in large sums. Fees were demanded for marriages, both by the church and the state. There was an inheritance tax; there were tolls imposed on bridges; and large amounts were extorted for the nomination to office of captains of districts, city ward commissaries, and watchmen; gambling was licensed; and there were the taxes on sugar, on pastures, on coffee and tobacco, and on minerals exported. The tax on all crops, except sugar, when gathered was ten per cent. There was a tax of $1.25 on every hundred weight of salt. Government documents were required to be written on special paper, furnished by the government at a high price.
Worse than all this were the restrictions placed on personal liberty. No private individual of a hospitable nature was allowed to give an entertainment to his friends, even a small evening gathering, without obtaining a license, for which he paid. If he neglected to do this he was fined, and sometimes the license was declared invalid on some pretext and he was fined anyway.