Salomón Jara confirmed an investigation against the mayor of Santa María Huatulco for reducing almost the entire property tax of Salinas Pliego
Mexico City, Mexico. – The governor of Oaxaca, Salomón Jara Cruz, announced that a formal investigation will be opened against the municipal president of Santa María Huatulco, Julio César Cárdenas Ortega, after a 99 percent forgiveness of the property tax was authorized to a company linked to businessman Ricardo Salinas Pliego, concessionaire of the golf course located in Tangolunda Bay.
During a press conference, the state governor questioned the legality and justification of such a significant reduction in the collection of the tax, equivalent to more than 2.7 million pesos corresponding to the fiscal year 2025 and warned that the case will be reviewed by both state and legislative authorities.
“A decrease of this size is not done to anyone. We all have to pay taxes. We are going to investigate how far the powers of the municipal president go,” Jara said.
The governor explained that he instructed the review of the case and confirmed that possible property debts in previous years related to the same property will also be analyzed.
For his part, the legal advisor of the Government of Oaxaca, Geovany Vásquez Sagrero, pointed out that although the municipal fiscal autonomy is respected, it will be evaluated if the forgiveness was legally authorized, if it had the endorsement of the Cabildo , and if it is contemplated in the Revenue Law of the municipality of Santa María Huatulco.
Vásquez specified that the application of tax discounts is not a discretionary attribution of the municipal president and that, even at the state level, these decisions correspond exclusively to the Attorney General, under strict and fully justified criteria.
Accident, links, and the use of a truck linked to Grupo Salinas
The announcement of the investigation occurs in a context of growing public controversy. On January 9, Mayor Julio Cárdenas suffered a road accident when he was traveling in a truck owned by a subsidiary of Grupo Salinas. Ten days after the accident, Dulce Ivonne, a young woman who was traveling as a companion, died.
The vehicle unit was used by the mayor since mid-2024, even during his electoral campaign as a candidate of the Green Ecologist Party of Mexico (PVEM). Since then, it has emerged that the company would have provided logistical and security support, which, according to press reports, would have generated political commitments.
Salomón Jara acknowledged that the use of the vehicle was inappropriate and stressed that this type of relationship “generates favors that are later paid from the exercise of public power.”
Golf course in federal dispute
The property benefited by the forgiveness corresponds to the Huatulco golf course, a land of more than 80 hectares that in February 2024 was declared a Natural Protected Area under the category of National Park, after the businessman refused to accept a purchase proposal for 420 million pesos raised by the federal government.
The land remains in legal dispute after the expiration of a concession granted in 2012, during the six-year term of Felipe Calderón.
According to information released by local journalists, Fonatur tried to cover the property tax on the property to prove rights on the land but discovered that the payment had already been made by a representative of the company linked to Salinas Pliego, with a reduction of 99 percent, paying only 27 thousand pesos.
In view of these facts, the local deputy of Morena, Concepción Rueda, requested from the rostrum that Mayor Julio Cárdenas be removed from office while the investigations are carried out, both for the tax forgiveness and for the accident in which a 20-year-old woman lost her life.
He also asked the state attorney general, Bernardo Rodríguez Alamilla, for an exhaustive investigation that guarantees impartiality and avoids any protection of political interests.
Source: Periodico Correo
