Behind the figures there are different factors such as the effectiveness and follow-up of the authority of cases that began to be determined 10 years ago, that is, in past administrations, explained Pablo Cervantes, a member of the Fiscal Technical Commission of the College of Public Accountants of Mexico (CCPM ).
The time that a lawsuit can take and resolve, until the last instance, is normally 10 years. “Very likely all these litigations have their origin 10 years ago, this means that the lawsuits that the SAT is now winning, were not necessarily started by the current administration,” said Cervantes.
But the focus on increasing revenue collection for the public sector has led the authority to reinforce its strategies to win the lawsuits, “it seems increasingly difficult to beat the SAT, that it be resolved in favor of the taxpayer,” he commented for his part. José Luis Gallegos Barraza, president of the Fiscal Commission of the Mexican Institute of Public Accountants (IMCP).
Back to ‘normal’
Also in the first quarter there is an upturn because the courts have already resumed activities and resolutions of the trials that stopped activities due to the Covid-19 pandemic, “even with courts closed due to the pandemic, the SAT won a significant number of trials, and the collection was important”, explained Cervantes.
“The reading that I give to the figures is that this is the resolution of issues that have been coming for months or years, in 2022 everything is returning to its cause for ordinary work, surely the number of cases is due to the reactivation, the fact that they are already resolving stuck issues. They are lawsuits that had already been initiated before the pandemic, “explained the president of the IMCP Fiscal Commission.
More money
So far in the current federal administration, in 2020 it was when the SAT registered its highest percentage of lawsuits won, 50.9%, while the value of the money recovered was 69.5% of the total. In this administration, this last percentage has remained above 60% of the total money in dispute.
“The treasury has been focusing, in the last three years, on supervising and litigating matters with large companies, companies-large taxpayers that obviously with them can collect a lot, or lose a lot, but they are matters of considerable amount (…) It has focused on large companies in which, with fewer cases, it can have a substantial economic result in its favor, ”explained the IMCP representative.
He said that the authority focuses its batteries to capture through auditing, when in an optimal tax system, it should be hoped that the collection would be given by the voluntary payment of the taxpayer, without acts of auditing, or via trials.
