Have you seen those Hummers that cost about a million pesos or dollars or whatever that have the little teeny tiny "bed"? Yep--they pay pick up tenencia! They do go after you after March but mainly just for the mordida. Cars in the States have to pay something every year too for new plates or inspection or whatever. We just have tenencia--which by the way comes from the verb "tener"=to have so it is just a tax for having it. When I had a car over 10 years it was about $400 pesos. I also have an old pick that doesn't pay anything then I have a 2007 liberty and it's about $3,300. If papers are in order you can pay online. Anything strange and you have to go down to the office so they can find a way to squeeze out $100 pesos from you to "arreglarlo".
I wondered if it occurred to the powers that be, at least in QR, that if we don't need this tax, that whatever money would not be collected would therefore not be spent. So whatever services these taxes are paying, we can presumably do without. So why not continue the tax, cut out what services we must not need if there is any consideration to cut out the tax AND FIX THE D%$* ROADS AND STREETS. Now what a novel concept that would be.
Money for roads and schools comes from Pemex--sale of oil. Goes to the federal government and then divided up among the States for that type of "social" programs. Pemex holds the dubious title of #1 company in the world with the largest debt and has no money to develop new oil fields that have been found in the Gulf of Mexico or enough refineries to supply enough gas for the country. So they skim money off to build roads and schools and other social programs. There was an article in this morning's paper--even the oil unions are in favor of a "tax reform" (which means more taxes) since they know they can't keep making such high wages and supporting a high level of corruption and inefficiency without some government help! What a vicious circle.
