Photo: SAT

By KELIN DILLON

Following his ratification as the head of Mexico’s Secretariat of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP), incoming Secretary of the Treasury Rogelio Ramírez de la O promised he would simplify the country’s tax structure in accordance with President Andrés Manuel López Obrador’s (AMLO) economic plan.

“Small and medium taxpayers cannot meet their obligations with the complex and expensive tax system that we currently have,” said Ramírez de la O on Twitter.

The new treasurer said he would add the reform into Mexico’s 2022 Economic Package, which will be presented on Sept. 8, arguing that the complicated structure that currently exists limits the compliance of present taxpayers and prevents the introduction of others into the system.

He also claimed the package would promote social development and provide increased opportunities for Mexico’s impoverished population in an effort to slim the wealth inequality gap.

“The president is firm in his position not to increase tax rates or to create new taxes. We are convinced that we have room to give this certainty and at the same time accommodate spending needs, always with austerity,” he said during an appearance before the ​​Finance Commission ahead of his ratification.

Ramírez de la O likewise stated he would reinstate a dialogue between the government and the private sector, a relationship that has been fraught with tension throughout the first three years of AMLO’s administration, and act delicately on the “very sensitive issue” of the finances of state-owned oil company Petróleos Mexicanos (Pemex).