The plenary of the Chamber of Deputies on Tuesday approved in the general reform to the Customs Law From the president of Mexico, Claudia Sheinbaum, which will harden the controls and sanctions against the customs agents and will make them solidarity responsible for all foreign trade operations in which they participate.
HE 338 votes issued in favor of the opinion of Morena, Labor Party (PT) and Green Party, and 129 votes against bread, PRI and Citizen Movement (MC). Now he began the discussion of the opinion in particular with 71 articles reserved by legislators.
The president of the Treasury Commission of the Lower House, Deputy Carol Antonio Altamirano (Morena), said during the foundation of the opinion that with this reform a customs law is improved that had not been updated in the background to combat corruption.
“The opinion validates a proposal that, although it might seem strict in terms of establishing greater controls, responds to the current challenges of an increasing international trade and the challenges imposed by the progress of organized crime impose,” said the deputy.
He also highlighted the five changes made by the commission that presides over the original proposal of President Sheinbaum, including an extension of 10 to 20 years of the validity of the patents and authorizations of agents and customs agencies.
Criticize deficiencies of the reform
The deputy of the Citizen Movement (MC), Patricia Flores, had advanced that her parliamentary group could not accompany the opinion because it is “a reform that does not touch the bottom of the problem, that does not correct corruption within the government.”
“The great fraud in customs are not born in the windows, they are born in the offices of Power. There are inspections, invoices are bought and millions of liters of gasoline are passed without paying taxes,” he said.
For his part, the PRI deputy, Jericho Abramo Masso, said that one of the most negative aspects of this opinion is the “lack of professionalization of the customs official”, while they want to carry all responsibility for customs agents.
“The principle of co -responsibility is left outside, we want to load all responsibility for customs supervision to customs agents (…) The government leaves its responsibility, leaving it all to the private,” he said.
While the PAN deputy, Federico Döring, said it is a lie that this reform will fight tax evasion and increase tax collection in the 50 customs of the country.
He criticized that the Government does not even have an estimated figure of how many additional taxes will be raised to approve this customs reform.
“The government does not have a figure, how you can endorse this when there is no government commitment to weights and cents of how much the collection will rise. It only comes to blame the customs agents of the corruption of your party,” he said.
What does customs law propose?
The customs reform proposes a series of fundamental modifications that will change some of the most relevant aspects in the Customs of Mexico, among them, that the customs agents are totally and solidarily responsible for foreign trade operations in which they participate.
And it is that with the reform, the exclusive responsibility of the customs agents who contemplated the Customs Law.
Thanks to these exclusive, the agents were not responsible if the differences in taxes or the breach of regulations of an imported or export merchandise were the result of false or inaccurate information that the importer or exporter had given the agent, and that he could not detect because it was not visible, for example.
Now without these exclusive, the customs agent is responsible for the importer and exporter, so it must verify that the information provided with respect to a merchandise is true and really corresponds to what is being wanted to import or export.
In this way, in accordance with the provisions of the opinion, the new customs law would fight undue practices that are committed daily in customs in order to evade the payment of taxes, such as smuggling or the undervaluation of goods.
Likewise, with the reform the patents and authorizations of agents and customs agencies will be valid for 20 years with the possibility of extending another 20 years, the agents are forced to be certified every three years, an customs council is created that will grant, renew, suspend and also extinguish the patents and authorizations, among other things.
