Dora Villanueva
La Jornada Newspaper
Friday, November 14, 2025, p. 5
Litigations lasting more than a decade are part of the history of Grupo Salinas. Among its oldest lawsuits, lost yesterday in the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN), one dates back to 2008, but seven years ago, at the beginning of the last administration, the business group was dragging lawsuits from 2001, according to the financial reports of the companies that until yesterday were its main assets: Tv Azteca and Elektra.
The conglomerate chaired by Ricardo Salinas Pliego, like many other large taxpayers in the country, had for decades the protection of fiscal consolidation, a mechanism born in 1982, which allowed business groups to do cross-accounting between their firms to present a single result to the Tax Administration Service (SAT).
Losses from purchases of shares of dying businesses were one of the schemes they used to disguise their profits and thus pay less taxes, according to an analysis by the organization, which does not point to any company in particular. Such was “the abuse” detected by previous administrations that modifications were made to the scheme to limit its flexibility for tax evasion.
In the case of Elektra, the tax reforms of 2010 and 2014, specifically the changes regarding the consolidation regime, were a turning point when it came to compensating the financial statements. Most of the tax credits carried by the company were imposed during the administration of Enrique Peña Nieto, after reviews carried out during the six-year term of Felipe Calderón.
The largest debt that Grupo Salinas has responds to the non-existent losses from the purchase of shares in the years 2008, 2010, 2011 and 2012, which ended up exploding in 2013 with a tax credit – as the liabilities that the SAT claims from taxpayers are called – which initially amounted to 18,455 million pesos, according to the reports that the conglomerate sends to the Stock Exchange. Mexican Securities Company (BMV).
At the end of 2018, with the change of administration on the horizon and the arrival of Andrés Manuel López Obrador to the presidency, Tv Azteca and Elektra exposed the effects that the adjustments and cessation of the fiscal consolidation scheme had had on their balance sheets, but they also reported complaints arising from other matters.
At the end of 2018, the television station was litigating 5,443 million pesos for liabilities that the SAT has been claiming for years, one of them since 2001; Elektra disputed 14.8 million pesos. These almost 20 billion pesos do not represent all the fiscal loans identified so far, but rather those that were already in court or one step away from leaving them.
At that time, Salinas Pliego made a place for himself on the Business Advisory Council of López Obrador, who in the first months of his government made public lists with alleged debts of large taxpayers.
There was resistance, but in the end the relevant events were paraded at the BMV announcing that Walmart, BBVA México, Grupo Modelo, América Móvil, IBM, FEMSA and Grupo BAL, among other corporations, would deliver multimillion-dollar contributions to the SAT, in some cases through conclusive agreements linked to tax credits.
The fight against the privileges of large taxpayers became one of the main narratives of the previous government, and was brought to the Constitution with a reform to article 28, which, since March 7, 2020, establishes that “tax forgiveness and exemptions are prohibited under the terms and conditions established by law.”
What’s next?
Defeated in the national institutions – and regardless of whether the corporation can appeal to any international body –, the SCJN must notify the SAT of its resolution. With the final ruling, the agency can determine the amount of the credits, even applying a series of assumptions in which deductions are allowed.
Given the announcement that the Court would discuss its matters this week, Grupo Salinas considered the battle lost and its main director threatened to take “their money” from the country. The businessman’s estimated wealth amounts to 134,450 million pesos. Your debt to the public finances of Mexico: 74 billion pesos.
