> ## Content Index > Fetch the complete content index at: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/llms.txt > Use this file to discover other available public pages before exploring further. # Mexico's Budget Adds No New Taxes. It Rests on Fuel Duty That Was Never Paid. - URL: https://www.lacaribenanews.com/mexico-2027-package-huachicol-fiscal-ieps-traceability-2026/ - Published: 2026-09-10T13:43:07.000Z - Updated: 2026-09-13T05:14:55.000Z - Description: Finance Secretary Edgar Amador Zamora delivered Mexico's 2027 Economic Package on 8 September, projecting growth of 1.5 to 2.5 per cent and funding 1.025 trillion pesos of social spending. It creates no new taxes. The bet is fuel-duty fraud Hacienda valued near US$16 billion. - Author: Theon Alleyne - Tags: Mexico, Compliance, tax, Energy, Business, Analysis **Quick summary:** Finance Secretary Édgar Amador Zamora delivered Mexico's 2027 Economic Package to Congress on 8 September, projecting growth of 1.5 to 2.5 per cent and funding 1.025 trillion pesos of social spending. It creates no new taxes. The revenue bet is enforcement against fuel-duty fraud that Hacienda valued at about US$16 billion. By LCN Business Desk Mexico's Secretary of Finance and Public Credit, **Édgar Amador Zamora**, delivered the 2027 Economic Package to the Chamber of Deputies at about six o'clock on the evening of **8 September**, and to the Senate at half past seven, [N+ reported](https://www.nmas.com.mx/economia/secretario-de-hacienda-entrega-al-congreso-el-paquete-economico-2027/?ref=lacaribenanews.com). The package projects real growth of **1.5 to 2.5 per cent in 2027**, against an estimate of 1.0 to 2.0 per cent for this year. Amador Zamora noted that the second quarter of 2026 produced annual GDP growth of 1.9 per cent, the strongest quarterly advance since the first quarter of 2022, and said the economy "ha mantenido una inflación estable y ha continuado creciendo", has maintained stable inflation and continued growing. The Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público said in its communiqué on the delivery that the gradual reduction of the deficit continues in 2027, with the **Requerimientos Financieros del Sector Público, the public sector borrowing requirement, at 3.9 per cent of GDP**. It said the package "permitirá fortalecer la base de ingresos públicos sin crear nuevos impuestos ni aumentar las tasas generales", will strengthen the public revenue base without creating new taxes or raising general rates. That sentence contains the whole fiscal strategy. Spending rises, taxes do not, and the difference has to come from collecting money already owed. ## What is the money being spent on? N+ reported social spending of **1.025 trillion pesos, 2.6 per cent of GDP**, reaching about **43 million people**. Within it, pensions for older adults take 543.5 billion pesos, disability pensions 37.4 billion, education programmes and scholarships 210.6 billion, and home health services 5 billion. A programme of that size funded without new taxation depends on the enforcement line holding. ## What is huachicol fiscal? It is fuel smuggling dressed as lawful import. Fuel enters Mexico under false customs classification, so the **Impuesto Especial sobre Producción y Servicios (IEPS)**, the excise duty on fuels, and value added tax are never paid on it. The product then sells at ordinary pump prices, and the margin is the tax that was avoided. **In 2025 Hacienda estimated the tax losses from huachicol fiscal at about US$16 billion**, [EL PAÍS reported](https://elpais.com/mexico/economia/2026-09-03/sheinbaum-propone-que-el-ieps-a-los-combustibles-sea-trazable-para-evitar-el-huachicol-fiscal.html?ref=lacaribenanews.com) on 3 September. That is the government's own estimate of what it fails to collect on fuel, set against a package that adds no new tax. ## What is the actual control being proposed? Traceability. EL PAÍS reported that President Claudia Sheinbaum proposes making the **IEPS on fuels traceable across import, distribution and sale**, so that a litre can be followed from the border to the forecourt and the duty matched against it at each step. This is a customs and excise control, not a tax rise. It works by closing the gap between what enters the country and what is declared, which is the same gap every fuel-importing state has to police. ## Why should a Caribbean finance ministry read this? Because the instrument is portable and the exposure is common. Every Caribbean state that imports refined product collects duty on it, and every one of them relies on declarations at the border matching volumes at the pump. Mexico's answer is not a new levy but a tracking obligation running the length of the chain. Whether it works is a question for Mexican enforcement. That it is being tried, at the scale of a national budget, is the part worth watching from Georgetown, Bridgetown or Port of Spain. This newspaper has reported the same theme from the other direction, in [what Germany got right about corrupt contractors](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/germany-procurement-self-cleaning-guyana/), where the control was procurement integrity rather than excise, and in the region's own [financial-integrity obligations at the Lima compliance congress](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/lima-compliance-congress-caribbean-gafilat-2026/). There is a caution attached to it, and this newspaper has already reported that too. In [Mexico Ordered Monthly Contract Disclosure. It Is Suspended From the Standard](https://www.lacaribenanews.com/mexico-transparency-decree-eiti-suspension-guyana-2026/), the same government announced a transparency measure while sitting outside the international standard that would have verified it. **An announced control and an operating control are different things**, and the test of the IEPS traceability rule will be whether collections move, not whether the rule is published. ## What happens next? The package is before the legislature. Nothing in it is settled until the Chamber of Deputies and the Senate have voted on the revenue law and the expenditure budget. ### What does the title card show? The title card carries a table headed "The 2027 package", under the line "Spending rises. Taxes do not." - Real GDP growth, 2027: 1.5 to 2.5 per cent, against 1.0 to 2.0 per cent for 2026\. Source: N+. - RFSP, the public sector borrowing requirement: 3.9 per cent of GDP. Source: Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público. - Social spending: 1.025 trillion pesos, 2.6 per cent of GDP. Source: N+. - People reached: about 43 million. Source: N+. - New taxes: none. Source: Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público. - US$16 billion, Hacienda's 2025 estimate of tax lost to huachicol fiscal. Source: EL PAÍS. - 8 September, the date the package was delivered to Congress by Finance Secretary Édgar Amador Zamora. Source: N+. - Noted on the card: the proposed control is traceability, following the IEPS on fuel from import through distribution to sale. - Quoted on the card: "permitirá fortalecer la base de ingresos públicos sin crear nuevos impuestos ni aumentar las tasas generales", Secretaría de Hacienda y Crédito Público, on delivering the package. ## Frequently Asked Questions Who delivered the 2027 package and when? N+ reported that Finance Secretary Édgar Amador Zamora delivered it to the Chamber of Deputies at about 6pm on 8 September 2026 and to the Senate at 7.30pm. Does the package create new taxes? No. The Secretaría de Hacienda said it would strengthen the revenue base "sin crear nuevos impuestos ni aumentar las tasas generales", without creating new taxes or raising general rates. What is the deficit figure? The Hacienda communiqué puts the Requerimientos Financieros del Sector Público, the public sector borrowing requirement, at 3.9 per cent of GDP in 2027, continuing a gradual reduction. That measure is broader than a headline budget deficit. How large is huachicol fiscal? EL PAÍS reported that in 2025 Hacienda estimated tax losses from huachicol fiscal at about US$16 billion. What is being proposed to stop it? EL PAÍS reported that Sheinbaum proposes making the IEPS on fuels traceable through import, distribution and sale. --- Mexico has written a budget that spends 1.025 trillion pesos on social programmes and raises no new tax to pay for it. The difference is meant to come from fuel that already crossed the border, on which the duty was never paid.