Ricardo Salinas Pliego must settle his debts with the Treasury and disburse approximately 50,000 million pesos to the public treasury, waiting for the SAT to detail the final exact amount. On Thursday, the Supreme Court unanimously approved the tax exemptions that the businessman was filing against the Supreme Court of Justice, which ruled against him in all previous cases. The path ended in the Supreme Court, which ruled, as expected, against the interests of the millionaire who was initially at risk due to the payment of 35.873 million pesos distributed over seven lawsuits. This number increases to include late payment surcharges, which in some cases reach 17 years. It was the largest lawsuit, initially involving approximately $18.5 billion, and was the first to be resolved by the plenary, which also agreed to fine the businessman for trying to exempt ministers Yasmin Esquivel and Linea Patrese from one of the related appeals, in which the latter abstained from participating. After this day, which puts an end to a journey of years, there will only be two transactions left to be resolved in court with an initial value of just over 700 million.
The projects voted on by ministers on Thursday — which were raised loudly because of the “importance of the issues in public opinion,” according to President Hugo Aguilar — are similar and do not get to the core of the issues raised by the owner of Electra, the lead company in the trials. The High Court has dismissed the company’s appeals over the review – or accepted the Treasury’s claims against it – under a number of arguments about the nature or scope of the issues.
In some cases, they argued that they did not involve constitutional questions (the Supreme Court’s field of analysis), and in other cases, although there were cases in this area, they did not represent an exceptional interest in this issue or in human rights questions and, therefore, would not lead to a new decision by the Court, which already had numerous precedents on similar tax issues that could serve as a reference.
In short, the action taken by the Supreme Court validated the actions of the collective courts, which had already ruled against the millionaire. Salinas Plejo, in the midst of an attack against the Moreno government of Claudia Sheinbaum, said the day before in El Salvador that he did not expect “anything different” from the meaning in which the judges ruled. “The court, which is false and politicized, has already made its decision,” he said. However, lower courts generally settled their cases before judicial elections took place and did so in the same vein. Various courts have argued that the company’s grievances are “ineffective” because they base the unconstitutionality of the contested regulations on circumstantial issues, such as the company’s particular situation, alleged arbitrary use of the law or imprecise wording. That is, it does not touch the essence of the rule.
The trials that Electra faced on this day, which appear historic given the public and symbolic dimension it acquired, cover financial years ranging from 2008 to 2013, and are related to an incorrect calculation of the company’s losses. This calculation, which the IRS considered excessive, resulted in a reduction in the taxes that the company had to pay, which benefited from a tax benefit that was not compatible with it. SAT then demanded the remaining difference to be paid, but the company sued to the end. Despite the exhaustion of national routes on Thursday, the trade group announced that it will appeal to the Inter-American Court of Human Rights and does not rule out suing the public agency, which it accuses of carrying out “financial extortion.” “Let it be clear: we will continue to fight in other cases, defending our rights in national and international courts and demanding that the amounts be fair and correct,” it was reiterated on Thursday in a statement.
The lawsuits filed on Thursday were of vital importance to the executive branch, which has made the battle against major debtors one of its top priorities. The president needs to raise revenues so she can maintain the social programs her project supports without resorting to tax reform, which she denies. To overcome this problem, this means closing the loopholes through which money that was supposed to actually enter the public treasury leaks. Two billion pesos are stuck in the courts over disputed tax breaks. The amount the businessman owes is not the largest, but it is the one that focuses the greatest symbolic burden on the president. The pushback between Salinas-Pliego and Sheinbaum is mutual and only fuels expectations about the dispute being broadcast in real time on the networks and in the president’s morning conferences, as well as in the courts. Winning the public’s support has become no less important than winning the actual case.
One blame the President has repeatedly made is the use of delaying tactics to delay compliance with the SAT’s favorable provisions. Without going any further, the nine major trials the businessman originally faced in the Supreme Court resulted in 101 minor matters, most of them at the request of the business group. But they did not serve to avoid the end result. The Supreme Court has accelerated its exit from the polls, sending seven of them this Thursday, all unanimously with some simultaneous votes from the ministers who qualified for office. Mexico’s fifth-richest man will have to pay.
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