Mexico Court: Lighting Fees Unconstitutional

QUINTANA ROO, Mexico — The new Supreme Court of Justice of the Nation (SCJN) has exposed abuses by local deputies in Quintana Roo who have forced residents to pay nearly 400 million pesos in illegal taxes. Under the presentation of Minister Lenia Batres Guadarrama, the SCJN has finally resolved an action of unconstitutionality presented in 2024 against the payment formula for the Public Lighting Service and Maintenance Right.

This charge is currently applied in 7 of the 11 municipalities of Quintana Roo, and in 6 of them, it has been deemed unconstitutional by the new ministers chosen this year in a popular vote.

Which Municipalities Charge and How Much for Public Lighting?

According to the revenue laws of the municipalities of Quintana Roo, a sum of 480 million 570 thousand 908 pesos is budgeted for 2025 for the concept of Public Lighting Service and Maintenance.

The largest amount corresponds to the municipality of Benito Juárez, estimated at 253.8 million pesos. This is followed by Playa del Carmen with 86 million pesos, and Othón P. Blanco with 37.9 million. The other municipalities are: Isla Mujeres, with 31.7 million; Tulum, with 29.9 million; Cozumel, with 24.2 million; and Puerto Morelos, with 16.9 million pesos.

Why is the Charge Unconstitutional?

In resolving the action of unconstitutionality 19/2024 against the Tulum Finance Law, approved in December 2023, the SCJN considered that the Quintana Roo Congress invaded the powers of the federal Congress.

For the ministers, the formula adopted by the Quintana Roo deputies establishes a contribution whose nature is that of a tax on consumption and electrical energy, not a fee. This refers to the paragraph that appears in both the Finance Laws of each municipality and the Finance Law of the Municipalities of the State of Quintana Roo, which authorizes the recovery of service costs at a rate of 5% of the electrical consumption of each home and business.

“The (article) establishes as a basis for calculating the amount of the fees for public lighting what taxpayers pay to the CFE, as users of the electric power supply service, which implies that it is actually a contribution that taxes a generating event of federal competence, and therefore produces an invasion of the sphere of attributions of the Congress of the Union,” said Minister Yasmín Esquivel Mossa in her intervention.

Have Deputies Refused to Correct This Historic Error?

The unconstitutionality of the collection formula for the Public Lighting Service and Maintenance Right is not new in Quintana Roo. Multiple injunctions from dissatisfied taxpayers have forced municipalities to refund, in recent years, thousands of pesos, primarily to businesses.

Despite these injunctions, the local deputies of Quintana Roo, including the current ones, first led by Jorge Sanén Cervantes and now by Renán Sánchez Tajonar, have insisted on generalizing this formula to all municipalities.

The most recent case they carried out was that of Isla Mujeres, governed by Atenea Gómez Ricalde. In February of this year, the Quintana Roo Congress established that all homes and businesses on the island must pay the municipality 5% of their electrical consumption to recover the money the municipality spends on the public lighting service.

Playa del Carmen, the Only Municipality That Considers Its Own Formula

Unlike the rest of the municipalities, Playa del Carmen considers in its Finance Law a formula for the Public Lighting Service and Maintenance Right that is completely different from the one declared unconstitutional.

In this case, it states that the monthly rate will be obtained as a result of dividing the annual, global, general, updated, and disbursed cost by the municipality by the number of users registered with the Federal Electricity Commission (CFE) in the municipality. In fact, the same article of its finance law clarifies that this charge cannot exceed 2.5% of electrical consumption, a reform made in 2019.