Mexican tax authorities announced new technological systems that will allow them to refund recoverable balances to taxpayers within five business days, through the implementation of prefilled tax returns for individuals.

On January 11, 2016, the Mexican Minister of Finance, Luis Videgaray Caso, announced that, for Fiscal Year 2016, the Mexican tax authorities will implement technological developments, such as a new system designed to automatically process tax refunds in a very short period of time and the issuance of prefilled tax returns.

During the "Tax simplification, the base for trust" forum, the tax authorities explained that the model for automatic tax refunds and prefilled tax returns will be implemented in March, benefiting only a few taxpayers that are regularly in compliance (including approximately 1 million employees required to file their 2015 annual tax return in April). To the extent parameters prove to be effective and sufficient, the system will gradually benefit a greater amount of taxpayers.

Because electronic invoicing is required for commercial taxpayers, the tax authorities explained that it will be easier for them to analyze the recoverable balances through a statistic predictive system to determine the risk level on taxpayers' profiles. If the new system validates a recoverable balance, a regularly compliant taxpayer will obtain a refund in only five business days once the taxpayer reviews the prefilled proposed tax return alongside their recoverable balances, accepts the return and verifies the bank account's routing number.

The tax authorities also announced that although the proposed system will only target employees once launched, they expect to extend the system to business entrepreneurs, service professionals and landlords shortly.

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