Dec. 15, 2013:Yet new twists have appeared out of Mexico’s latest tax system revisions. Various internet sources report:
~ When you need a factura, we must use credit cards (debit cards?), checks, or bank transfers for any purchases over $2,000 pesos after Jan. 1, 2014.
~ SAT’s intent is to force people/businesses who take tax deductions, to use a form of payment that simultaneously creates an electronic record to allow SAT to electronically confirm (cross-check) our tax deductions. Checks, debit cards, bank transfers and credit card transactions are tracked electronically by SAT.
~ When using facturas, only electronic facturas will be permitted. The electronic facturas are currently in place at a number of businesses, where they print out an official factura for the customer and simultaneously send the same information to SAT/Hacienda. Businesses without a computer factura generating system on site can use a SAT webpage to log each transaction and to print out a factura.
Both of these measures are huge steps to allow Mexican Government tracking of monies spent by ordinary people and ordinary businesses.
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Surviving Yucatan 
is that only for people who need facturas??? or all cash payments?
Hi marissa,
I have edited the discussion above to clearly answer your question. Only people who need facturas.
thanks, steve
The tracking is to capture tax… Many businesses are under the table… to avoid tax. Small businesses are being required to purchase electronic factura machines, and that cost is onerous.
Best of luck!
Hi Peter,
One small tweak: You wrote ” Small businesses are being required to purchase electronic factura machines, and that cost is onerous.”
Instead, I believe that small businesses can also use a SAT webpage to report and print the electronic facturas. The business must have their FIEL or electronic signature, and then they can create individual facturas on the SAT web site. See: “Generación Gratuita de Facturas Electrónicas” http://www.sat.gob.mx/sitio_internet/asistencia_contribuyente/principiantes/comprobantes_fiscales/66_23416.html
with more information here: http://www.sat.gob.mx/sitio_internet/asistencia_contribuyente/principiantes/comprobantes_fiscales/default.asp
While searching information on SAT webpages for the previous answer, I came across another related useful SAT website, for people who nned an RFC for starting a bank account. This SAT page is for requesting an RFC. You enter your CURP and continue. At the end of the process you get a page to print showing your RFC number. ~ https://siat.sat.gob.mx/PTSC/inscurp/ ~
steve
What about house purchases where the cash transfers in Estados Unidos but the FC & title transfers here?
Hi Matt,
For years the cash/funds transfers between home buyers and home sellers in Mexico must take place in Mexico. It has been illegal to do a cash transfer in the USA for title transfers in Mexico, and it continues to be illegal.
The intent of SAT is to electronically track any deductions that people may want to make against their taxes.
steve
I tried to get a credit card in MX with Bancomer, where I have an account. I am a residente permanente but do not have a job or income coming from MX, only the US. I was told I was not eligible for a credit card, regardless of how much money I get through pensions, social security, etc in the US. So this makes me wonder, do I have to pay a gringo credit card an international fee now? or can I use my bancomer debit card?
I’m still digging to find the original Spanish text of the rules, to try to get a clearer picture.
steve
@Creagh That is surprising. I have my account with Santander. They constantly offer me credit cards with different limits and features. I have to keep telling them not to call me. Maybe you need to have a your cash account for months or years. Mexico does have a credit bureau. Bank and stores credit cards are reported to the credit bureau.
Change to another bank. BBVA is notoriously difficult to work with. Santander could be a better choice.
Creagh, that seems very odd. I requested and got a Bancome DEBIT card last year, and it works just fine. Perhaps the D is the difference? I’m simply a tourist who spends six months here.
–Hacienda/SAT seems to be biting off more than they will be able to chew this coming year. Already, businesses grossing more than 250,000 Mex (more than than about an average gross of 5,000 pesos a week, or about $380 USD)) will need suddently to become computer proficient?
–Tourists coming off a boat will need to pay with a credit card? If they have not alerted their card issuing bank of a current, possible stay in Mexico, a U.S. or Canadian bank would likely flag and deny the transaction.
— I would expect that Haciencda would next requires that all resident foreigners need a Mexican tax id number, the Registro Federal de Causantes (RFC), associated with their Mexican credit or debit cards? (Please, this is my guess, not yet a requirement for all of us.) One can now start the application for an RFC via the SAT’s Internet portal, with such info as your CURP number, listed on one’s residente temporal or residente permanente INM card. Currently only those earning Mexican–sourced income need an RFC, including anyone receiving rental income from a Mexican property and such persons, trusts, or corporations must issue receipts to their renters.
— As for Creagh Day’s question, SAT wants accountability. Your Mexican debit card provides such. Too few Mexicans have debit cards, let alone credit cards, so SAT should be happy to have a debit card transaction recorded. Then again, perhaps most .Mexicans are not financially capable of making a 2,000 pesos or more purchase, so it does not matter to SAT that most of the Mexican population has no bank account, let alone a bank debit or credit card.
Since the intent of SAT is to electronically track the expenses that people and businesses claim as deductions, then debit card transactions serve as an electronically documented transactions tracked by the government. Checks cleared by banks are similarly electronically logged, and tracked by the Mex. Gob.
I don’t understand where SAT requires tracking of non-deducted items, like foreign visitors coming to Mexico and spending cash – wanting no documents or just notas/recibos. or do I misunderstand your point (Reading Terminal)?
steve
As to your first para., uh huh, that is why debit card transactions provide as effective a record of money flows as credit cards.
Secondly, I earlier expressed disbelief that the GOM would require non-residents to make all purchases over 2000 pesos by such cards, but if it is or will indeed be doing so, Hacienda,
by capturing all but the most trivial purchases/money transfers, would minimize money laundering, further limit criminals’ money flows, and augment tax collection.
A firm, such as a tourist-based business, could claim non-traceable receipts from parties not requiring facturas and thereby launder criminal-sourced funds by mixing such with actual proceeds from the business. Hacienda has taken a step towards the voluntary reporting, by tourists, of major purchases, by offering refunds, of IVA so far at selected POE’s for selected shops, to tourists who apply for them with the proper documentation, thereby potentially reducing the flow of funds escaping Hacienda’s purview. Requiring significant purchases by credit or debit card further meets Hacienda’s objectives.
Does this pertain to the cartels too….
the solution is stop investing in Mexico and take your money else where
Hi Joe,
Are you pro-money laundering by criminals and drug lords?
Are you in favor of underground un-taxed economies?
Are you against Mexicos efforts to enter the realm of being a first world, well-functioning democracy and well-functioning government?
Collecting fair taxes from ALL citizens is a hallmark of well-functioning democracies.
Corruption thrives in cash economies, where the rich and people with sharp lawyers can bend the rules and claim lots of unsubstantiated deductions and false expenses, paying lower tax burdens than the Middle Class and poor. The proposed system is JUST to ALLOW SAT to verify the DEDUCTIONS and EXPENSES that people use to pay less taxes.
Uneven taxation is a hallmark of a sick society. In the USA the top 2%’ers actually pay an average of only 17% taxes on their income, while middle class plumbers and other workers pay an average of 27% income taxes. As an American, maybe you do advocate unbalanced taxation?
Consider the USA – a land of growing inequities due to the rich and powerful people manipulating the laws and rules:
~ In the Clinton era expansion: 45 percent of the annual total personal income gains went to the top 1 percent.
~ In the Bush recovery, the 1%’ers took 65 percent of income gains.
~ Under the tax and investment regulatory rules/policies that Obama inherited: the top 1%’ers gobbled up 93 percent of the total income gains.
If the new SAT system helps crack down on upper income people’s cheating on their expenses/taxes, this system should reduce the current inequities and help build a stable tax collection base for a better Mexican future.
The people with something to hide seem to be the biggest critics of tax inequity reform?
steve
Steve,
I do not see a way to contact you directly. This is off topic but it should be disseminated. I have not seen any mention on local blogs. I think there might be fear of PR effects as they report such things as when a dog bowl is stolen. Please read the third comment to the article, it is quite telling.
http://progresohoy.com/noticias/agentes-ssp-capturan-delincuente-que-robo-golpeo-una-canadiense-casa-progreso-14631/
Summary: 2 local Progreso teens believed to enter a Canadian’s home through a bathroom window, hit the Canadian in the head in the middle of the night, and robbed her. One suspect apprehended. Canadian victim’s injury was treated at the scene.
Not good,
steve
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