• TOUGH BILL: Despite criticisms from business and several fiscal experts, Mexico’s Lower Chamber passed Tuesday a controversial package of legal changes that would punish as organized crime some tax fraud offenses along with fake invoicing and the creation of phantom companies.
• CRITICISM: “To invest, people and companies need certainty and clear rules that leave no room for abuse in the interpretation of authority. Without investment, it will not be feasible to achieve the economic growth and tax collection goals”, said the CCE, Mexico’s largest business organization.
• THRESHOLD: Waiting for its enactment by President Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the new law even mandates pre-trial detention during the investigation of tax fraud -which is defined in the new law as dodging more than USD 406,000-, something that according to business leaves room for unjustified harassment.
• IN FAVOR: “In the last five years it is estimated that the Mexican State has lost around 2 billion pesos [USD 104 million] due to this type of tax fraud”, said congressman Marco Antonio Medina Pérez, a congressman with Mexico’s ruling party, Morena, moments before the vote.
