Mexico tax authority asks miners to rectify contributions

Mexico’s tax authority SAT is urging large taxpayers in the mining and other sectors to voluntarily supplement their 2020 and 2021 contributions if they were below the calculated income rate.

“Those taxpayers whose effective rate is below the parameters published by SAT have been contacted, so that they can carry out their analysis and voluntarily correct their tax situation by submitting complementary annual returns,” SAT said in a statement.

The publication of the effective rates is part of control measures detailed in the authority’s 2023 master plan.

For silver mining, the effective rate for 2020 is 6.33% and 6.30% for 2021. Mexico is the world’s biggest silver producer.

The effective rate for gold is 7.48% for 2020 and 9.12% for 2021, and for copper and nickel 9.81% for 2020 and 10.54% for 2021.

SAT added that call also seeks to “minimize the possibility of initiating more in-depth reviews aimed at corroborating the correct compliance with tax obligations.”

The authority defines a large taxpayer as an entity that declares income of over 1.5bn pesos (US$80mn) per year, but it is estimated that fewer than 1% of taxpayers belong in this category.

The rates are established “based on the information available from SAT, obtained through annual returns, tax reports, information on the tax situation of taxpayers, informative returns, digital tax receipts online, petitions, among others,” according to the authority.

Mining chamber Camimex said in its 2022 sustainability report that the industry’s income tax contribution was 24.2bn pesos in 2020 and 54.2bn pesos in 2021.

Financial and insurance services, wholesale trade, retail trade and manufacturing industries are the other sectors for which SAT released the reference tax parameters.