As head of government of Mexico City, Claudia Sheinbaum caused a real estate crash in 2019. The pandemic arrived and the capital is still paying for “Claudia’s mistake”: not enough housing is being built. Since no one learns from other people’s mistakes, we are on the verge of “Clara’s mistake.”
Clara Brugada had a new procedure published in the Mexico City Gazette on December 27 (she almost did it on the 28th, April Fool’s Day) so that the owners of 75 thousand properties “can get” information about their properties.
There are doubts about the true scope, but what is known is this:
Starting February 18, all properties with a cadastral value (cadastral, not commercial) of 4 million 554 thousand 974 pesos with 39 cents or more will be subject to a:
“Informative declaration presented by taxpayers obliged to pay the property tax, before the Secretariat of Administration and Finance, regarding the condition of the properties intended for residential use, whose ownership or possession updates the payment of the referred tax.”
That is, the rich (because not everyone can obtain properties of that value) will have to fill out a form that says:
1) If the property is occupied…
2) If it is occupied by the “owner”, or “relatives”, or “friends”, or is “lent”, “rented” or “another status” (sic).
The authority says that it will not be mandatory to respond. Except for one small detail: it will be mandatory to fill out the lines for the owner (CURP included) and property (property tax account included), and to state the “cause or reason” for the refusal to share the information with the government.
I’m almost to the questions, don’t despair.
In short, the Government of Mexico City wants some owners (La Jornada says that they are 3% of the 2.5 million cadastral accounts in the capital) to declare to Finance what they use their house(s) for… or why they don’t want to report on the matter.
Questions:
-Why, if the form is supposed to be for “statistical” purposes, in rule number one of this measure the Ministry of Finance states that it is information “regarding the condition of the properties intended for residential use, whose ownership or possession updates the payment of the aforementioned tax”?
-Isn’t there an implicit contradiction when the authority, in the gazette itself, says that they are going for the information on properties of that value “due to a minor update in the cadastral records compared to the universe of taxpayers obliged to pay the property tax and because these properties are where the greatest change in land use occurs in Mexico City”? In other words, they know that there is a lot of change in land use in these properties, and they don’t have updated information? Who authorizes these changes in land use? The Congress of the city, the one where Morena, since 2015, is the protagonist: did they score a goal against their deputies? And the Morena government did not notice these changes in more than one six-year term? Are they incapable or are they accomplices? Or is it an intimidating/persecutory measure?
The gazette adds: “Considering the dynamism of the group of properties mentioned, it is considered necessary that regarding these properties there be updated data that guarantee that the information on the properties is accurate and up to date (recontra sic).” Do they know about the dynamism, but not what it does or what causes this “dynamism”?
Do they really not see the effect that they are about to generate in the construction sector? Are they so desperate for money, or for revenge against those who vote less for them, that they prefer this measure even at the cost of scaring away new real estate investments?
The right to decent housing is a claim that is discussed on a global level. Correcting or mitigating real estate voracity, or promoting that there are no houses without people and people without housing, is a debate that this very week has been proposed by Salomón Chertorivski.
And speaking of the property tax: it should be by definition a progressive tax: those who have more or those who have properties of greater value pay more. Are we facing an increase in property tax, only for one sector and disguised as an “update”?
But is a request from Finance the best way that the government that calls itself left-wing finds to start the debate on the arrears and housing rights in the capital? It sounds like revenge. Even more so after the attempt to get ahead in frozen rents.
And since we are on the subject of questions: will there be verifications to validate if what was reported is reliable? Would they enter houses without a court order? Will they use the information to report house rents to the SAT? Although they say they will not sanction, how can we be sure of that?
In Mexico, the grayer generations know what happens when “Lolita” asks you for information. “Lolita” was that government campaign so that you would not be a fool if the SAT today came looking for you.
Yes, you have to pay taxes, but these must be general and for public service. Because the state of the streets, sidewalks and other public services in the capital, including security, that is, the use of those taxes, is out of the question.
In any case, doesn’t the head of government Clara Brugada urge more people to put a lot of money into housing projects, so that there are jobs, to begin with? And so that there is social housing and housing of more than 4.5 million pesos in cadastral terms for those who want to pay that.
The new obligation to notify the use of one’s own home will discourage buyers and, therefore, builders. Surely in Bosque Real they opened champagne for Brugada’s “December mistake”: more chilangos will go to live in the State of Mexico. Oh, Clara.
Source: elfinanciero
