The companies, who profit heavily from the exploitation of Mexican labour, seek to maintain significant fiscal advantages at the expense of the Mexican treasury after years of evading export taxes.

This article originally appeared in the December 28, 2025 edition of Sin Línea.

The recent ruling by the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) on the tax debt of Grupo Salinas has raised concerns among other corporations facing multimillion-dollar lawsuits with the Tax Administration Service (SAT) , including the South Korean technology company Samsung Electronics and eight maquiladora companies in the export sector under the IMMEX program.

The Mexican Tax Administration Service ( SAT) is seeking 6.714 billion pesos in unwithheld VAT from Samsung between 2019 and 2023. The tax authority maintains that so-called “virtual exports”—permitted under the V5 customs declaration of the IMMEX program to simplify logistics and reduce paperwork and costs—were abused by some companies to avoid paying Value Added Tax, arguing that the merchandise remained in Mexican territory, even though its final destination was export.

Samsung lost its case against the SAT (Mexican Tax Administration Service) before a collegiate court in Yucatán.

Samsung has responded that these are strictly documentary operations between IMMEX companies that participate successively in the production chain before final export, without sale to the final consumer.

Therefore, it argues that taxing them would imply double VAT collection on the same transaction, a criterion previously supported by courts such as the Federal Court of Administrative Justice (TFJA) and the Administrative Plenary of the North Central Region. However, in December, a Collegiate Court based in Yucatán ruled in favor of the SAT in a similar case, requiring a maquiladora to pay a tax credit of 9.2 million pesos.

The controversy is significant: if the Court rules in favor of the eight maquiladoras demanding a refund of the VAT collected under the new interpretation by the Ministry of Finance and Public Credit (SHCP), the Tax Administration Service (SAT) would have to return up to 46 billion pesos. Despite this, the tax authority has insisted that, since the goods do not physically leave the country, they are subject to VAT, a position that business associations have denounced as an aggressive, discretionary, and retroactive revenue-raising criterion.

Gustavo de Hoyos Walther, former president of COPARMEX and federal deputy for Movimiento Ciudadano, who has been an outspoken opponent of the 4T regime, openly criticized the judicial action, considering that the attraction of cases by the “new” Court has been guided by the amount of resources and not by their legal relevance.

“Under no circumstances should the revenue collection criteria govern the actions of the Court,” he warned.

IMMEX asserts that its case is diametrically opposed to that of Salinas Pliego

Tax consultants such as Erick Elizarrarás and Arturo García —partners at ARPEA Consultores— argued that, unlike the Salinas case, in the IMMEX case there is a genuine legal contradiction, since for 20 years the authority validated an interpretation that it now seeks to change retroactively.

As of September 2025, the SAT reported having won 6,559 lawsuits for 141,547 million pesos and lost 3,774 for 33,223.6 million pesos, according to figures from the Report on the Economic Situation, Public Finances and Public Debt of the Treasury.

Ministers like Yasmín Esquivel Mossa have previously argued that it is not appropriate to tax virtual exports with VAT, as it violates principles of fiscal equity; in contrast, Lenia Batres and projects aligned with the SAT have warned that invalidating these charges could legitimize evasion and cause “significant damage to public finances.”

On October 1, U.S. President Trump reaffirmed that any progress would have to go through Washington, while the Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) again postponed the discussion on October 1. The pronouncement of the justices elected in June is still needed to determine the final outcome of these tax disputes.

The post Supreme Court Tax Rulings Concern Samsung & Maquiladoras appeared first on Mexico Solidarity Media.

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