Plan B… C… D… X…for taxes

With the Calderón administration admitting, when it submitted the federal budget, that it had not “Plan B” for how to pay the bills beyond a two percent across the board raise in the Value Added Tax, it was clear the administration was taking a “my way or the highway” approach. Which, given that their party, PAN, is now a minority in the legislature, was a non-starter.

PRD, going back to ideas floated during the López Obrador presidential campaign, has resurrected the idea of public austerity (cutting back on perks and benefits for public officials), as well as raising the graduated income tax rate and the price of oil.

PRI has its own proposal, which is still being tweaked, which would also also  raise petroleum prices.  The PRI proposals for the most part would accept a two percent tax raise, but most would exempt food and medication (presently untaxed, as reading material, and school supplies).

A few PRD politicians — state governors, who under the present system, depend on federal tax revenue for their own operating funds — have supported the across the board raise, but with conditions.  Buying the Administration’s claim that an across the board tax would benefit the poor, Chiapas Governor  Juan Sabines Guerrero wants any revenues raised to be tied to measurable progress in Mexico’s Human Development Index figures.