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CEMETERY

Dead man mocks tax minister on gravestone

A Spanish musician has mocked the country's finance minister Cristobal Montoro with a message he told his relatives to inscribe on his headstone.

Dead man mocks tax minister on gravestone
Budget Minister Cristobal Montoro enjoys lukewarm popularity in Spain, having come to be seen as the ‘austerity man’ behind public spending cuts. Photo: Frank Black Noir/Flickr

“Montoro, you bastard, come now and get your money,” was the inscription chosen by 66-year-old José María Beranjano Martín, from the village of San Pedro de Latarce in northern Spain.

Although he died on November 27th 2013, the humorous engraving has only just recently been posted on social media sites and turned into an internet sensation.

Why ‘Chema’, as his friends called him, chose to take an ‘eternal’ dig at Spain’s Minister of Finance and Public Administrations isn't known, although there is plenty of speculation.

“He either had problems with Hacienda (Inland Revenue) because he didn't pay his taxes or he was referring to when Montoro chose to raise the VAT for musical performances to 21 percent,” local mayor María Mercedes de Castro said of the former music promoter and head of a travelling band.

Budget Minister Cristobal Montoro enjoys lukewarm popularity in Spain, having come to be seen as the ‘man’ behind public spending cuts under the ruling conservative Popular Party. 

A 2014 study by social research body CIS found Montoro to be the second least popular politician in Spain after Education Minister José Ignacio Wert.

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