Executive answer
The 6.5% base under Article 182 Section II is built from maquila operating costs and expenses incurred by the Mexican resident under financial reporting standards and includes certain foreign-resident expenses subject to conditions. It is neither total operating expense in the ledger nor tax-deductible cost.
Article 182 provides exclusions and treatments for goods and materials purchased by foreign residents for their own account, tax deductions for investments owned by Mexico, inflation effects, financing expenses and certain extraordinary or nonrecurring costs. It also addresses specific services and personnel costs incurred abroad in relation to the operation.
A defensible computation uses an account-level catalog, a financial-reporting-to-legal bridge and evidence of who incurred each cost, for which operation and under which concept. Apply criteria consistently during the year and reconcile them to profit, annual return and DIEMSE.
Classification bridge
| Field | Content |
|---|---|
| account/subaccount | ERP code and description |
| nature | payroll, service, material, finance, investment, other |
| center/activity | maquila, other activity, corporate |
| incurred by | Mexico or foreign resident |
| obligation of | benefiting/contracting entity |
| rule | inclusion, exclusion or special treatment |
| adjustment | amount and formula |
| evidence | entry, invoice, agreement, payroll, standards |
| owner/reviewer | people and date |
Do not reuse last year’s list without reviewing movements and new codes.
Accounting starting point
Extract the year’s trial balance and ledger with centers, projects, counterparties and currency. Reconcile to financial statements and cost of sales. Include year-end reclassifications and audit adjustments.
Separate maquila operations from other activities through actual centers, not a residual percentage. Review shared and corporate accounts through a verifiable driver. Revenue may not reflect electricity, maintenance or HR consumption.
Build the bridge from total accounting expense to the 6.5% base: remove non-operating items; add qualifying foreign expenses; replace book depreciation with the required investment deduction; apply express exclusions; make reclassifications; reach the final base.
Ordinary operating costs
Analyze labor, benefits, energy, rent, maintenance, quality, safety, internal logistics, consumables, services, systems and supervision. Confirm the maquila connection and entity bearing the obligation.
An indirect cost can belong when it serves operations. Document the driver and population. Do not exclude plant administration merely because it does not touch the product. Do not include a corporate service without benefit and evidence.
Sample items by value and risk. Tie invoice, receipt, agreement, payment and entry. For provisions confirm reversal and later settlement.
Foreign goods and raw material
Section II excludes acquisition value of goods, raw material, work in process or finished goods used in maquila that foreign residents purchase for their own account. Distinguish those goods from Mexican-incurred supplies and costs.
Reconcile memorandum accounts, principal inventory and cost of sales. Prevent the Mexican ERP from placing a statistical recharge or standard value into the base. Document ownership and purchaser.
Where Mexico purchases domestic materials for incorporation, analyze the cost and Article 181 requirements. Do not extend the foreign-goods exclusion to Mexico’s own purchases.
Investments and depreciation
For fixed assets, deferred expenses and charges owned by the maquiladora and used in the operation, Section II requires investment deductions under the Income Tax Law. Bridge book depreciation to the applicable tax deduction.
Identify date, amount, percentage, months, adjustment and use. Segment other activities. Do not remove book depreciation without adding the appropriate concept or double count with the asset base.
Construction in progress and assets not yet in use need fact-specific treatment. Reconcile with PT-053.
Inflation and financing expenses
Section II excludes inflation effects under financial reporting standards and financing expenses. Identify interest, FX, commissions, derivatives, accretion and present-value accounts. Do not exclude an entire “finance” account without classification.
A bank-processing fee may be an operating service; interest is financing expense. FX on a purchase may have different nature and presentation. Document reporting standard, agreement and position.
Reconcile financing expense to intercompany transactions and filings. Exclusion from the 6.5% base does not determine deductibility or transfer pricing.
Extraordinary or nonrecurring items
Article 182 excludes specified extraordinary or nonrecurring operating expenses under financial reporting standards but contains details concerning reserves, provisions and liquid funds. Do not create a broader management category.
Prepare a memorandum by item showing event, recurrence, presentation, reserve, provision, funding, date and support. Launch costs, scrap, severance, pandemic or restructuring expenses are not automatically excluded.
Review consistency. A business should not budget an item annually and call it nonrecurring without explanation. Apply related favorable adjustments symmetrically.
Zugzwang’s Cost Base Review turns the ledger, centers, reporting standards and foreign expenses into a traceable 6.5% base.
Foreign-resident expenses
Under the relevant paragraph, Section II considers only foreign expenses for services directly related to maquila performed on behalf of the Mexican resident to cover its Mexican obligations, or certain foreign employee expenses for services in the operation where presence conditions are met.
Prepare a list by provider/person, service, obligation, country, amount, currency, days, agreement and evidence. Do not include principal overhead from a global allocation. Prove direct relationship and beneficiary.
For foreign personnel the statute contains salary, benefit, physical-presence and proportionality rules. Obtain travel records, payroll, function, days and cost. Coordinate individual tax, immigration and permanent-establishment analysis; the 6.5% computation does not resolve those consequences.
Payroll and benefits
Reconcile paid payroll, provisions, social charges, bonuses, vacation and benefits to accounting. Identify maquila employees, other activities and expatriates. Use a roster showing position, center, dates and time.
Headcount allocations should reflect functions. A manager serving two plants needs evidence. Control hires, departures and bonuses recorded after close.
For provisions document obligation and treatment under reporting standards and Article 182. Tie later payments and reversals.
Intragroup services
A management fee can be an accounting cost and still require separate evidence of benefit and materiality. Determine whether it relates to maquila, represents Mexico’s obligation and which component enters the base. Do not assume a nondeductible service is automatically excluded or that every invoice is included.
Retain agreement, deliverables, allocation key, invoice, withholding and payment. Separate duplication, shareholder activity and foreign expenses potentially subject to the special rule.
Treatment in the 6.5% base, deductibility and arm’s-length pricing are different questions sharing evidence.
Illustrative case
The ledger reports MXN 1 billion of cost and expense. It includes MXN 120 million of principal raw material recorded statistically, MXN 30 million of finance expense, MXN 40 million of book depreciation, MXN 32 million of applicable tax investment deduction and MXN 15 million of qualifying foreign services.
The preliminary bridge is 1,000 − 120 − 30 − 40 + 32 + 15, subject to other classifications. The team also finds MXN 20 million labeled “extraordinary launch”; the reporting memorandum shows recurring program cost, so it remains.
Account names do not determine the figure. Every adjustment needs authority and evidence.
Segmentation of other activities
Map revenue, people, assets and costs for maquila versus local repair, services, storage or other operations. Direct costs follow the activity; shared costs use a causal driver. Reconcile to the entire company.
Test sensitivity of material drivers and approval. Do not allocate more expense to maquila merely to increase the base or less to reduce it. The method should be stable and reflect consumption.
If the activity changes during the year, segment by period. Update centers before launch.
Controls and close
Classify new accounts and movements monthly. Test payroll, foreign services, nonrecurring items and investments quarterly. At close freeze the catalog, log adjustments and reconcile statements.
Use checks for an account without a rule, negative balance, new counterparty, cost without center, duplicated depreciation, unsupported foreign expense, unpaid provision, driver without data and prior-year variance.
Connect the final base to Result B, the 6.9% comparison, profit, annual return and DIEMSE. Preserve version and acknowledgments.
Adversarial review
Is the ledger complete; does each account have a nature; are foreign goods separated; was depreciation replaced; were finance items classified; do nonrecurring items meet the text; do foreign expenses satisfy conditions; does payroll reconcile; are other activities segmented; does DIEMSE use the same number?
The reviewer should select accounts that both reduce and increase the base, not only the largest.
Minimum deliverable
Account-rule catalog, trial balance and ledger, segmentation, reporting-to-base bridge, goods, investments, finance, nonrecurring items, foreign expenses, payroll, services, samples, review and bridge to the 6.5% result.
Cost-center and driver design
Every center needs an owner, activity, period and close rule. Identify plant, warehouse, quality, engineering, administration, corporate and other-activity centers. Avoid “miscellaneous” centers accumulating ownerless cost. Review new ERP codes before use.
For shared cost document population and driver: kilowatt-hours, square meters, orders, labor hours, tickets or headcount. The driver should measure consumption rather than merely be available. Compare against an alternative and explain material differences.
Prevent retroactive changes without approval. If a center was used incorrectly, preserve the original record, reclassify through an entry and record root cause. An off-ledger allocation change can break reconciliation to statements.
Provisions, reversals and payments
Prepare a roll-forward for each provision: opening, addition, use, reversal and closing. Link obligation, period and evidence. Determine whether Article 182 or reporting standards require special treatment, particularly for items claimed as extraordinary or nonrecurring.
A favorable reversal should follow treatment consistent with the original expense. Avoid including cost in one year and omitting the reversal later without analysis. For bonuses, vacation and unbilled services, reconcile computation and subsequent payment.
Review reserves with expressly designated liquid funds where the statutory text refers to them. Obtain bank evidence, restriction and approval. An accounting provision alone does not prove the condition.
Foreign personnel: days-and-functions file
Use a sheet by person showing employer, residence, total salary, benefits, function, project, entry/exit dates, statutory days, Mexican obligation and considered cost. Reconcile travel to immigration, security and access records.
Do not include an executive’s whole payroll because of one plant visit. Prove service in the operation and applicable proportion. Do not omit weekends, vacation or other days described by the statute where relevant. Review the rolling twelve-month period.
Document foreign recharge and currency differences. Separate salary from travel, hotel and per diem because each component may have a different nature.
Frequent exception catalog
Investigate credit balances in expense, reimbursements, rebates, casualties, subsidies, indemnities, scrap proceeds, capitalized costs, freight on foreign inventory, product warranty, idle capacity, line closure and payments on behalf of another entity. Determine treatment rather than netting indiscriminately.
An insurance recovery may connect with an included or excluded expense; retain the link. A rebate may reduce a specific purchase or represent income; follow substance and standards. Capitalized costs may return through investment deduction and should not be counted twice.
Maintain a resolved-question log with facts, conclusion and approver for consistency across plants.
Reconciliation to taxable profit
The 6.5% base uses financial-reporting concepts, while Safe Harbor requires taxable profit. Build a separate bridge from accounting to tax result and then compare profit with Result B. Do not confuse a base adjustment with an authorized deduction.
Reconcile maquila revenue, true-up, nondeductibles, investments, other-activity items and result. The same account can receive different treatment in the base and taxable profit. Identify every difference explicitly.
DIEMSE should use figures consistent with workpapers and annual return. Require a final tie-out signed by accounting and tax.
Scenarios and monitoring
Forecast the base by payroll, variable cost, fixed cost, investment and foreign expense. Model wage inflation, energy, ramp-up, line closure and expatriate personnel. Compare with the 6.9% test to see which dominates.
If a large cost may be nonrecurring, show both scenarios until the conclusion is approved. Do not use the favorable assumption as the official forecast without a memorandum. Set a decision deadline and owner.
Higher cost increases Result B but may lower preliminary profit. The dashboard should show both effects and the required adjustment rather than only the percentage.
Sampling and second review
Select accounts by value, judgment, new code, foreign source, credit balance and variance. Recalculate drivers and investment deductions. For services test evidence; for payroll test the roster; for nonrecurring items test reporting standards and funds.
Give a clean trial balance to a second reviewer and require reconstruction through the catalog. Record differences before comparing with the preparer’s file. This tests whether rules are understandable and reproducible.
Service-company and plant interactions
Where another Mexican group company supplies personnel, rent or shared services, identify the legal provider, underlying expense and intercompany margin. Avoid counting both the provider’s underlying cost and the maquiladora’s full charge unless the rule supports the treatment.
Reconcile invoices and eliminations. Test whether the service is directly connected to maquila and whether cost allocation reflects consumption. Separate the transfer-pricing question from the statutory base classification.
If the provider owns assets used on the floor, coordinate the 6.5% analysis with the 6.9% asset inventory and lease exclusion. The same arrangement can affect both tests differently.
Sources and cutoff
This article was verified as of August 2, 2026. Consult the current Mexican Income Tax Law, Articles 181 and 182, the SAT Safe Harbor notice page and the OECD Mexico profile. Confirm annual rules, reporting standards and employee benefits.
Zugzwang delivers a Cost Base Review reconciling the ledger, reporting standards, investments, exclusions and foreign expenses to support the 6.5% result.