With the aim of raising enough money to finance the cost of taking off millions of chewing gums that users eat and then throw into the streets, put on monuments and on facades of public buildings, the Chamber of Deputies of Mexico analyzes the proposal to apply a special tax to the price of this product.
Despite the valid economic argument, the initiative has already aroused some mixed opinions. According to Ricardo Jaral Fernández, mayor of the Historic Center of Mexico City, the proposal would be functional if the money reached directly to those in charge of cleaning the cities.
However, in the opinion of Manuel Jiménez, an employee of a renowned shopping center in the city, this is a cultural issue, which does not end with raising the price of rubber.
As stated for the BBC by the company Kraft Foods, in Mexico more than 92,000 tons of chewing gum are produced annually, which represents revenues close to US $ 420 million. Which places the Aztec country in the second largest consumer of this treat after the United States.
The proposal aims to mark a 35% tax on each unit of chewing gum. Currently the price of this sweet in Mexico is one dollar, while taking off a chewing gum from a façade or a monument costs five times that value.
According to the Chamber, an average of US$80,000 per year is allocated for this work. As Jaral Fernández explains, the people in charge of cleaning in the Historic Center remove, if only the stretch of Madero Street is taken into account, an average of 2,000 chewing gum a day.
