By José Antonio Pérez
As 2018 closed out, Andrés Manuel López Obrador (AMLO) signed his second decree as President to lower taxes, raise salaries, and standardize gas prices with the U.S. along Mexico’s entire northern border region, measure which includes Puerto Peñasco and creates the world’s largest “free zone.”
The Fiscal Stimuli Decree for the Northern Border Region went into effect on January 1, 2019 for 43 municipalities in all, eleven of these in Sonora, which encompass over 3,000 kilometers along the border.
The program consists of lowering the Value Added Tax (IVA) to 8%, and income tax (ISR) to 20%, while doubling the minimum salary to 176 pesos and standardizing gas prices (gasoline and diesel) with costs on the U.S. side of the border. The goal, according to President López Obrador, is to promote economic growth and job creation.