Photo: Deposit Photos

By KELIN DILLON

More than 23,000 trials pertaining to tax-related issues were carried out in Mexico during 2021, a significant increase from the pandemic-afflicted year of 2020, when only 11,871 trials of the same nature took place.

However, considering the Federal Court of Administrative Justice (TFJA) was closed from March 18 to June 30, 2020, due to covid-19 pandemic health regulations, many potential suits and trials were unable to be held for a full quarter of the 2020’s calendar year, the effects of which are clearly evident in the year-to-year differential.

Of the trials carried out in 2021, 9,722 were won by taxpayers, accounting for 42.1 percent of the total case volume, while another 7,974 were lost and 5,385 were declared null and void by the courts, with the sum of these lawsuits totaling to 193.2 billion pesos according to data from the Finance Secretariat .

The increase in cases in 2021 was reportedly bolstered by the new ability for Mexican taxpayers to file disagreements over treasury resolutions, something they were unable to do before, adding cases from 2020 and 2019 to 2021’s total load, particularly when taking account the fact that the legal process takes 50 percent more time to complete than before the pandemic.