Despite the collection efficiency indicators, it is clear that municipal dependence on the transfer of federal resources is also related to poverty and high marginalization conditions in most municipalities of our country, especially concentrated in the south-southeast of the national territory.
There are a number of indicators that reveal the poverty of most of them as well as their geographical location, which has led to unfortunate observations about the existence of the two Mexicans and this reality. What happens is that at some point they decided to develop and industrialize the North closer to the United States, and left the role of an exporter of labor and agricultural products to the South.
Fiscal, tax, and budgetary policies, which are stabilization programs promoted by some international organizations that are intended to be strengthened since the 1970s, are still visible today in countries such as Argentina.
The balance of the same we continue to see today not only in indicators of poverty and marginalization, productive structure, collection of own income, or participation in federal taxes, access to municipal public debt, etc.
The most repeated example – but it still is – is an estate tax, a collection of property taxes. Of the roughly 2,500 municipalities in the country, it barely accounts for more than 0.1 percent of GDP; Of course, if we add to the CDMX, we are between 0.2 and 0.3 percent. Figures too far apart, compared to Argentina’s 3.0 percent, Brazil’s 2.0 percent, or Colombia’s 1.0 percent, of course, don’t make us compare ourselves with the United States and Canada or the OECD members.
Another is the fact that tax collection is concentrated in only fifty municipalities, excluding, in particular, Mexico City, 62 percent; If we include this, we will reach three quarters. Almost all of these municipalities are located in the center and north of the country, except six in the south: Puebla, Benito Juárez, Solidaridad, Acapulco and Mérida.
We have one more sign in municipal debt; The 50 municipalities concentrate three-quarters of the total debt of this order of government, with the distribution being more heterogeneous, as are some of the economic or political capitals of the southern states, such as Quintana Roo, Veracruz, Chiapas and Campeche. The foregoing means that most municipalities are left out of access to indebtedness, which, if used well, is a useful support for financing – in this case – for infrastructure works and communities. the gain.
Regarding poverty levels, CONEVAL noted in its publication “10-Year Municipal Poverty Measurement” that, in 2020, in 2,466 municipalities, 1,697, with at least half of its population, live in poverty. Was and is only in 173. Half the population is concentrated in that circumstance.
Similarly, we find that Oaxaca (with eight), Chiapas (six) and Guerrero (one) have the municipalities with the highest percentages of the population living in poverty with practically all of their residents living in this unfortunate situation. . On the other side of the mirror of extreme poverty, states such as Nuevo León (with 11 of them), CDMX, Coahuila, Sonora, have the 15 municipalities with the lowest inequality in the north and center of the country. and Chihuahua, and the remaining four.
In short, it is a challenge to increase the level of municipal development for the benefit of the population and future generations.
Superior Auditor of Federation
