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 Business News | September 2007 
Mexico Congress May Approve Tax Proposal This Week, Larios Says
 Patrick Harrington - Bloomberg
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 |  | We plan to have a preliminary bill tomorrow to be able to approve it before Friday.
- Hector Larios |  | |
Mexican lawmakers may agree on changes to President Felipe Calderon's tax plan tomorrow, enabling Congress to approve it as early as the end of this week, said Hector Larios, head of Calderon's National Action Party in the lower house.
The bill that is likely to go before Congress would boost tax collection by 1.5 percent of gross domestic product in 2008 and by as must as 2.5 percent in Calderon's six-year term, Larios said. Lawmakers today and tomorrow should finalize a separate but "parallel" bill that will outline tax cuts for state oil monopoloy Petroleos Mexicanos, or Pemex.
Congressional approval of the tax bill would mark the biggest victory yet for Calderon, who took office in December. Passage of the bill would allow Calderon's party to include the extra revenue in its 2008 budget, which it must submit by Sept. 8.
"We plan to have a preliminary bill tomorrow to be able to approve it before Friday," Larios said in an interview today following Calderon's state of the union address. "We are only lacking the final negotiation and will probably reach it in the afternoon and tomorrow."
Larios said the accompanying bill to reduce Pemex taxes would require a separate vote from Congress. Larios didn't say how big the tax cut for Pemex would be.
"We are working on it now," he said.
Calderon first submitted his plan to boost tax revenue by as much as 3 percentage points of GDP during his term in June. Business groups said the initial proposal's alternative minimum tax on companies of as much as 19 percent was too high.
Leaders of Mexico's Institutional Revolutionary Party, the third largest in Congress, said they would support Calderon's tax proposal if he included cuts for Pemex. The state oil monopoly provided more than 40 percent of Mexico's revenue last year.
To contact the reporter on this story: Patrick Harrington in Mexico City at pharrington8@bloomberg.net |
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