We received a letter from Mr. Jorge E. Torre Loría, former state secretary of Tourism, who says the following:
The Business Coordinating Council of Yucatán has united in its entirety to reject the increase in the payroll tax that the government of Joaquín Díaz Mena intends to raise, without prior consultations so that businessmen could express their concerns regarding such imposition.
It comes to mind, without being completely sure, that in years when the government of Yucatán was in the hands of Dulce María Sauri, this tax was imposed on state companies.
I remember that, like now, the business leadership of Yucatán became involved in a confrontation with the government to prevent this tax from being implemented in the state.
I belonged to Canaco Servytur at that time, and we found out that the governor made an offer to the businessmen to approve said tax and propose where they wanted this resource to be invested, but the businessmen gave in and the government could not convince them. The tax was approved and we all had to pay it.
Something similar is happening now, but when the Business Council of previous years approved the increase in lodging in a meeting at Canaco.
Nicolás Madahuar, former president of Canaco, said that it was the first time that the organization approved an increase in a tax.
According to the Diario’s notes, in the economic package the lodging tax will be reduced by 0.5%, but if the law that Governor Vila promoted is not changed where it says that only 50% of this tax will be for promotion we will have fewer resources for promotion, because if 50% of the collection that is now 5% is reduced to 4.5%, the 50% will be 2.25% instead of now which is 2.5%.
I hope that the government backs down, but I find it very difficult, because I believe that the government has never changed its proposal to raise more resources.