From the outset, perhaps the title of this column may seem somewhat tendentious and to some extent populist to many, but the reality is that after the advances that the tax collection in the last four years in Mexico, the next step should be what has recently and with greater persistence been recommended by various agencies and non-governmental organizations worldwide: make the rich pay more.
Currently, the region of Latin America and the Caribbean (LAC) is by far the country with the greatest inequality in the world between rich and poor. Even after the post-pandemic effects of Covid -19, the exacerbation of this phenomenon was evident, where on the one hand the working class saw their sources of income drastically reduced, and on the other hand, they were the richest who managed to take advantage of the contingency and shamelessly use it to speculate on their products and services and thereby further increase their fortunes.
According to a study by the Inter-American Development Bank (IDB), it is in this LAC region where the richest 10% of the population earn 22 times more than the poorest 10%, and the richest 1% earn 21% of the income of the entire economy. And if wealth is analyzed instead of income, inequality is even more offensive, since 10% of its inhabitants concentrate 75% of the total wealth that exists in said region.
The foregoing is easily understandable if we consider that historically, and not only in LAC but worldwide, a large part of this higher-income segment has always sought to evade taxes, for which they have political influence and accounting and legal defense. that ends up helping them achieve that purpose.
Added to this tax evasion, the tax system in Latin American countries is still so unfair that, according to the study presented by the NGO Oxfam (called “The Law of the Richest”) within the framework of the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland, that started just yesterday; While the collection of labor and consumption taxes (ISR and VAT) in this region increased 11% from 2007 to 2009, the collection of corporate income and wealth decreased by 5%.
But wanting to increase the taxation of this sector of the population with tax threats or simple exhortations and calls for ethics and social commitment, is like wanting to convince drug traffickers to stop their activities alluding to the damage they generate to public health. That is to say, in both cases it is ambition and that hedonistic vision that puts money before the premise of a modern humanism, considering the latter as a new philosophical current that, without opposing the deity and beliefs, puts as primary interest human beings, their well-being and social justice.
It is for this reason that the tax policy that has been implemented in our country in the last four years is very meritorious, where despite the fact that a comprehensive tax reform that is so necessary has not been promoted, very effective measures have been applied. who have finally forced the richest to pay their taxes. Thus, together with factors and situations that our country is experiencing, such as the surplus registered by the trade balance and the increase in remittances from abroad; The measures that the Tax Administration System (SAT) has developed to bring the wealthiest into line, is something that today is recognized by locals and strangers, measures that have also contributed largely to maintaining economic stability, which has allowed the Federal Government to subsidize the various social and assistance programs that it has implemented.
As hard and irrefutable data, it stands out, for example, that from 2018 to 2022, the SAT has collected through the collection of large taxpayers (those with income greater than 1,500 million pesos per year), a total of 847 thousand 973 million pesos , surpassing and by far in just these four years, everything collected for this concept in the six-year term of Enrique Peña Nieto, when 501 thousand 133 million pesos were collected. This has also been a determining factor to avoid resorting to tax increases and/or a greater indebtedness of the country, through the acquisition of credits with international financial organizations.
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Considering all of the above and responding to the call that organizations such as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) and non-governmental organizations such as Oxfam have been making with greater insistence lately, it is necessary for Mexico to take the next step and promote new tax legislation . With this, in addition to a more equitable distribution of what is collected between the federation, states and municipalities, a whole legal framework could be designed to meet the recommendations of these organizations, in the sense of taxing wealth more aggressively.
In this way, taxes could be increased for the highest income taxpayers, simultaneously eliminating all kinds of tax exemptions, including the deceptive donations and philanthropic actions that they usually develop, which ultimately end up deducting them. With all this background, it is proposed as a start to apply an annual tax of up to 5% to the richest, which would generate, in the LAC region alone, additional resources of 180 billion dollars, enough, for example, to double the investment that is jointly allocated to education or increase that related to public health by 36%.
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