FOCUS / LATIN AMERICA : Mexicans Hear Tax Man’s Footsteps : President Salinas pushes a novel--and, for him, politically dangerous--concept.

The treasury secretary beams with pleasure over the subject. Business leaders are fuming, and the press has dubbed it nothing less than “terrorism.”

The government of Mexican President Carlos Salinas de Gortari actually has decided to collect income taxes. Really, seriously, no kidding, to collect taxes--and to jail people who do not pay them.

It is a rather novel idea in Mexico, where most writers, artists, athletes, doctors, lawyers and countless other professionals used to live tax-free. And where, in 1989, 70% of all legally registered businesses declared no profits on which they might be taxed.

No more, says Treasury Secretary Pedro Aspe. He notes that in 68 years of Mexican government before the Salinas administration, only two people were ever tried and convicted for tax evasion.

“That was immoral, totally immoral,” he declared.

By contrast, 48 people were convicted of tax evasion last year alone. “We don’t have any quotas, but we are serious about this,” Aspe said.

Needless to say, the issue is not making Aspe a popular man. He has been dubbed the male, Mexican version of Britain’s Margaret Thatcher.

“Business has become a risk, with the fear of being persecuted and going to jail,” Eduardo Garcia Suarez, president of the Concanaco business group, complained to La Jornada newspaper earlier this year.

For those in business and for citizens who did pay their taxes, the new law passed by Congress last December is lowering the amount of income tax they pay from 55% in 1988 to 35% by next year. The theory is that more people will pay taxes at a “reasonable” rate, one that is on a par with the United States and other industrialized countries.

The new law eliminated exemptions that allowed self-employed professionals to avoid taxes, and it closed loopholes for businesses. And it simplified tax returns to make payment easier.

Of course, if the carrots do not work, there is always the stick.

Aspe hails the tax audit as if it were some sort of invention--which it was for the 1.2% of taxpayers audited in 1988, 4% audited last year and the estimated 10% who are to be audited this year.

Critics say the audits could be used politically to harass the government’s enemies. The tax inspectors, they say, are overzealous agents who earn a percentage on what they collect.

The public grumbling over taxes stems not only from the fact that people are not used to coughing up the dough, but from an apparent lack of confidence that they will get anything for their money in the way of government services.

Taxes, writes political commentator Lorenzo Meyer, should serve three purposes: to pay for the government machinery, promote economic development and redistribute wealth.

In Mexico, Meyer writes, none of those purposes is served.

“Taxes have never been an effective instrument of equality,” he says, noting, too, that the gross national product fell 12% from 1980 to 1988.

As for the government machinery, he writes, “The procurement and imparting of justice is in as critical state as the police. Public education . . . is terrible.”

So, asks Meyer, where is the money going?

His answer: In 1988, 46% of the government’s budget went to pay the interest on the internal and foreign debt. Public works, in contrast, accounted for 10% of the budget.

Tax collection is politically risky because it hits the middle classes, the very political base that Salinas is trying to develop. But despite the press criticism, he has managed so far to avoid the kinds of demonstrations and violence that other countries have suffered over tax issues.

And some taxpayers even support the policy.

The old law “led the way for tax evasion,” said Gustavo Prado, a partner in Price Waterhouse Gonzalez Vilchis. “Large businesses were window-dressed to look like small businesses. That is where you hear the screaming from now.”

Nightclub entertainer Olga Breeskin, one of several high-profile entertainers targeted by the Treasury Ministry, has agreed to pay more than $350,000 in back taxes.