The Special Tax on Production and Services (IEPS) that is charged on gasoline at the federal level, would leave the treasury just 30.777 million pesos, an amount considerably less than what had been approved this year in the Federal Income Law (LIF). ).
Karina Ramírez Arras, head of the Non-Tax Revenue Policy Unit of the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP), said at the SHCP Chair –an academic and theoretical talk given for the UNAM Faculty of Economics– that initially she raised a collection of IEPS gasoline at the federal level of 288,602 million pesos for this year.
We do expect to collect, not as planned in the LIF, which was 288,000 million pesos. We expect to collect much less, but this has a very large benefit on the economy because it helps us to counteract inflation”, he said, emphasizing that his statements did not show an institutional position of dependency.
Conflict in Europe, affects
In this way, the public treasury would be collecting 89% less than expected for this year, which is explained by the fiscal stimuli that are being granted to gasoline due to the high levels of oil prices, which began to rebound after the conflict in Eastern Europe.
The collection left by the IEPS for federal gasoline will be 6.3 times less than the collection obtained last year, which was 195,814 million pesos. Meanwhile, the IEPS for state gasoline – which is implemented by each federal entity in its own way – will leave a collection of 29,533 million pesos.
Since the beginning of February, the fiscal stimulus to the IEPS for gasoline reached the rate of 100% and, given the persistence of high oil prices at the international level, the agency implemented a complementary stimulus to avoid sudden increases.
According to the statements made by Rogelio Ramírez de la O, Secretary of the Treasury, during the presentation of the government’s plan to combat inflation, the gasoline stimuli have paid for the price increase to not be greater than what has been presented in the last months.
“Without this measure, we estimate that inflation, which today is 7.6%, would be close to 10%, which in itself is removing the pressure on the interest rate, and once we have pressure on the interest rate we are going to have pressure on the exchange rate,” explained the official at the National Palace last Wednesday.
campaign pledge
The fiscal stimulus for gasoline aims to respect the promise, made since the presidential campaign, of keeping fuel prices stable.
According to Karina Ramírez Arras, Magna gasoline has decreased 6.1% from November 2018 to March this year, while the price of Premium gasoline has fallen 5.0 percent.
The foregoing, he highlighted, contrasts with the accumulated inflation from November 2018 to March this year, which is 17.45 percent.