“The complexity of taxes is itself a tax.”
Max Baucus
CANCUN.- A few days ago, a radio listener sent a desperate message to the radio program that I host with Lupita Juárez: “My name is Humberto Mondragón Sánchez. We are setting up a family business. The incorporation process was carried out before a notary public. We already have the deed of incorporation of the company. When wanting to register with the SAT we find that there is no appointment for registration of legal entities and they tell us that this problem has been almost four months old. In other words, the 4T does not want the creation of new private companies. How awful.!”.
The truth is that the problem is much older than four months. I had to suffer it in 2020. Then it was justified by the pandemic; but, although we have been told several times that it would be overcome, the nightmare continues. It not only affects companies, the so-called “legal entities”, but also natural persons who want to have productive activities. I received hundreds of comments on the subject when I spread the case on Twitter: “In my case, months waiting to register a company. My idea, my illusion of having a business, postponed,” commented JM Gaytán (@jmgbiker). Josué Mosqueda (@JosueMosiba) added: “I have paid up to 3,000 pesos for a date, and from friends in the middle I have found out that they came to sell them for up to $10,000.”
It wouldn’t have to be that way. One of Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s commitments as a candidate was to carry out a radical simplification of the tax system. On September 4, 2018, when he was president-elect, he stated in Monterrey that he would promote a “tax reform that, from my point of view, will have simplification as a basic element, trusting the citizen, the taxpayer, not seeing him as a potential criminal, but as a responsible citizen”. Yes, the new system would be based on trust in taxpayers. Reviews would be done randomly. Paying taxes would be a simple process that anyone could do.
To the SAT it is necessary to recognize a great efficiency in the collection. Despite the drop in VAT at the borders, and the economic problems of recent years, it has managed to increase revenue. Computerization has advanced in a very important way. Today the authority knows minute by minute what the fiscal situation of each taxpayer is. Wage earners with only one job can receive their annual declaration electronically and fill it quickly and easily.
The problem is the taxpayer’s obligation to physically present himself at an SAT office to register his biometric data. The system has collapsed there, especially since the start of the pandemic. The result has been to turn what should be a simple procedure into a huge obstacle to the creation of new companies and the productive activity of people. It would seem that the objective is to punish the payment of taxes, promote the informal economy and encourage corruption.
SAT employees do an efficient job and the institution has maintained its professionalism in this six-year term. But it is important to modify the rules. If the SAT does not have the capacity to give sufficient appointments, the requirement for face-to-face registration should be eliminated or postponed. This shouldn’t be a problem. The taxpayer can operate provisionally until the SAT has the capacity to serve him. After all, the president himself promised that his government would trust the taxpayers.
purposes
President López Obrador justified yesterday having signed the letter of support for Argentine Vice President Cristina Fernández, despite the philosophy of non-intervention in the affairs of other countries, because “the administration of justice should not be used for political purposes.” Curious, because that is what is happening more and more in our country.
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