Tax reform is unnecessary in the next six-year term

President Andrés Manuel López Obrador said that a fiscal reform is not necessary in the future if the formula for fighting corruption and a republican austerity policy is maintained.

In his usual press conference at the National Palace, the president said that he is against a tax reform, since he considered that this term is actually a euphemism for tax increases.

Speaking about the direction of the national economy, he assured that the president-elect, Claudia Sheinbaum, agrees with the economic policy promoted in this six-year term and is confident that she will continue with it.

There are those who are waiting for a change, for a setback, for a return to neoliberal policy, but I would recommend that they accept that economic policy will continue.he declared.

Mexico is the only country where a different policy is being applied with good results.he said, pointing out that during this six-year period 10 million compatriots were lifted out of poverty and that both the poor and the rich they have done well.

He recommended that government contributions to Pemex continue, as this has allowed the company to reduce its debt and focus on its goal of increasing production. He said that if his government had not bailed out the oil company and the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE), fuel and energy prices would have risen to double their current costs. As we were successful, what we did was stop the privatizations and rescue both Pemex and CFE, because they were in fact going downhill, heading towards bankruptcy..

There are no favorite companies

He said that during his administration there have been no preferred companies in the awarding of works, nor has any group been favored with a large number of contracts as occurred in previous administrations, and he asserted that the relationship with the business sector has been very good, both with national and foreign companies.

He recalled that during Felipe Calderón’s six-year term, there was a Spanish company, Repsol, that received a huge number of contracts. If you review the contracts awarded to Repsol, you will see that not only were there many, they were not covered by law and they abused.

The same thing, he emphasized, occurred during Enrique Peña Nieto’s administration, when another Spanish company, OHL, was favored. It was the favorite company because “all the construction contracts were for this company. The law was not complied with and the costs were high. There have been no favorite companies in our government.”

He revealed the evolution of tax collection in his administration based on a comparison with the collection of 2 trillion pesos in taxes between January and August 2018. However, despite the pandemic, when a drop in collection was predicted, it has grown consistently: in 2020, it rose to 2 trillion 200 billion pesos.

López Obrador reported that in 2021, the amount collected was 2 trillion 441 billion pesos, between January and August of that year; in 2022, 2 trillion 624 billion pesos were collected; in 2023, it was 2 trillion 996 billion pesos and in 2024, between January and August, it was 3 trillion 338 thousand pesos.