The Secretary of Finance Rogelio Ramírez de la O and the president of the Board of Directors of the Chamber of Deputies Sergio Gutiérrez Chamber of Deputies / EFE / Chamber of Deputies
The Economic Package 2022 has been delivered this Wednesday in the Chamber of Deputies by the Secretary of the Treasury, Rogelio Ramírez de la O. This is the first plan on the country's budgets that the economist has presented as head of the Mexican Treasury and the experts They point out that the project is ambitious when it comes to tax collection. Given the decision of the president, Andrés Manuel López Obrador, not to carry out a tax reform that would raise or create more taxes, the Treasury proposed closing the gaps through which large taxpayers evaded taxes to obtain resources. However, the agency itself recognizes in its proposal that oil production - an important source of income - will fall.
Foreign trade will boost the gross domestic product (GDP) by 4.1% in 2022, as reported by the Secretariat in the document presented to Congress.
The Mexican peso will depreciate to an average of 20.30 pesos per dollar and inflation will be 3.4%, in line with the central bank's target range.
The Government proposes to spend 7.5% more than this year, significantly increasing the amounts for aid to the elderly, spending on emblematic projects of the Administration and the money destined to the companies of the State Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex) and the Federal Commission of Electricity (CFE).
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"The secretary is optimistic, in my opinion, without raising bells and whistles or being triumphant," says Ignacio Martínez, a research economist at UNAM. "Next year the rebound of the national and world economy will end in relation to what we had in 2020. That is, in 2022, and economies such as the American and Mexican will be returning to their pre-pandemic channels." In 2019, Mexico stagnated, registering an economic growth of 0.1%.
The largest increase proposed by the Treasury in 2022 is to the support program for the elderly, with an increase of 76%. It is also proposed to increase Pemex's budget by 16.8% and that of CFE by 7.7% compared to last year. Pemex is the most indebted oil company in the world and its production will fall in 2022, according to the Treasury, by 2.2%, which directly impacts the government's income. The Treasury proposed, to increase collection, to make changes in the fiscal miscellany so that large taxpayers have fewer legal loopholes that allow them to evade taxes.
"The additional revenues that we expect to obtain will be the result of tax collection improvements and simplification actions based on trust that we are implementing," said Ramírez de la O in front of Congress. "We will do the above in conjunction with inspection actions for the effective compliance of tax obligations by taxpayers."
Ramírez de la O also announced that menstrual products will now be tax-free as a “gender equity” consideration. The measure, which has already been approved in the parliaments of some countries, seeks to lower the price of products to impact the most vulnerable women and menstruating people. "This proposal is welcome, it is not a bad proposal, it is just not enough," says Adriana García, economist and coordinator of economic analysis in Mexico How are we going? (MCV), a non-profit research center.
The López Obrador Administration replaced the resources granted to day care centers and childcare centers with direct transfers to working mothers, which has generated an exit from the labor market for women. By 2022, the Treasury proposes to spend 238,000 million pesos in transfers to adults over 65, while the program for working mothers was only assigned 2,684 million.
“If Mexico had enough fiscal space to be able to provide a minimum universal pension to the elderly, that would be a great initiative, but having an extremely limited fiscal space and in the midst of the pandemic, to propose that the largest social program in the Administration is not focused on the families that need it the most, it returns with a regressive component, "explains García," because families from the highest deciles of society are receiving this program, when the penetration of other social programs that have a more progressive is eliminated ”.
And she adds: “If we want more women to enter the labor market, what we need is to provide a care system. The secretary did not talk about childcare centers, nurseries, which were things we already had, we are not talking about a new care infrastructure, but every time we see that they have fewer resources. It is impossible to think about the insertion in the labor market of women without these care systems and infrastructure ”.
According to Martínez's estimates, the Treasury proposes to increase the budget of four projects that are emblematic for the López Obrador Administration by 12%, including the Tren Maya tourism project, a refinery in Dos Bocas, Tabasco, an airport in Santa Lucía to serve Mexico City and a train on the Isthmus of Tehuantepec, in the south of the country.
In addition, the resources sent to the states will increase 4.7% compared to this year.
“We are going to have a very interesting year,” says Martínez, “since, if private investment does not flow and is reflected in an increase in production and, therefore, in job creation, we will not see this programmed income in non-oil tax assumptions ”.
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