Mexico improves exporters’ VAT scheme

For business with foreign imports, but mostly only export sales – and therefore a regular excess in import VAT – the Mexican VAT regime to help accelerate VAT refunds has been improved further.

Where an importer (for later export) brings supply chain goods into the country, it must pay 16% Mexican VAT on the import. Typically this is an withholding made by the Mexican company. Since there are limited local sales, there is no output VAT to offset this input VAT suffered. The government therefore created an input VAT refund system “IMMEX Maquiladora” which enables a credit to be taken the month following the import.

The government has now changed this to enable the credit to be taken in the month of the import.