From: rjsalvad@iastate.edu (Ricardo J Salvador)
Subject: UNIX, ONIX, MEXICO y tus impuestos
Organization: Iowa State University, Ames, IA
Date: Mon, 31 Aug 1992 21:53:06 GMT

De acuerdo con la siguiente propaganda, para prosperar a Me'xico so'lo
le haci'a falta reconocer que' tipo de sistemas de manejo de informacio'n
eran necesarios ;).  

FROM:  INFORMIX TIMES, Issue 3, August 1992

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SUCCESSFUL PARTNERSHIP:     INFORMIX AND MEXICO'S HACIENDA Y CREDITO PUBLICO
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The charter of Hacienda y Cre'dito Pu'blico, Mexico's internal tax agency,
is to collect taxes from the 80 million Mexican citizens and from thousands
of businesses.  Faced with increasing taxpayer evasion and dwindling public
coffers, Hacienda installed an on-line information system based on Informix
relational database management system (RDBMS) software, 75 Hewlett-Packard
servers, and the UNIX operating system.  Since its installment in 1989, the
new system has helped the agency manage information, locate tax evaders,
and increase gross revenues by 20 percent.

Charting a New Course

In 1988, Mexico's economy was in crisis.  Inflation hovered at 150 percent,
the country's gross national product (GNP) was expanding at a meager two
percent, and the government faced a deficit equal to 17 percent of its GNP.

The Mexican government stood at a crossroad: should they take additional
foreign loans to keep the economy afloat?  Or should they institute a new
economic policy based on monetary and fiscal discipline and a wage/price
stabilization program?

It chose the latter--and with dramatic results.  In the first half of 1991,
Mexico's inflation rate had dropped to 10 percent, its real GNP growth rate
had doubled to four percent, and the government's deficit had shrunk to an
estimated two percent of GNP.

A critical part of the deficit reduction was the government's ability to
increase tax revenues by 20 percent.  This was accomplished by installing
a more efficient, state-of-the-art information system based on Informix
software.  Working through a local Informix distributor, Hacienda has 
developed the tools to locate and track tax evaders, which has enabled
the government to fill the treasury and improve its fiscal standing.

"The difference today is that, with the Informix/UNIX combination, we
can manage information more efficiently and we can pinpoint taxpayer
evasion," says Jorge Hernando, director of information services.
"Before, taxpaying was almost voluntary because there was no way to
enforce it."

"Hacienda employees now have instant on-line access to the complete
records of taxpayers--who paid last year, how much they paid, and what
they should owe this year," says Hernando.  "If a payment is received
and there is a discrepancy with last year's return, the employee can
compare the two returns on line.  Or, he or she can contrast the
taxpayer's return with those of colleagues in the same occupation to
ensure parity and consistency."

"Also, employee's don't have to search through paper files now.
Information is always available and current.  With the new system,
Hacienda has reduced its paper use by 80 percent."

Mainframe System Provided Dated Information.

Before installing Informix, Hacienda used an information system that was
based on an IBM 3031 mainframe and a Cullinet database.  The system
presented Hacienda with three major challenges:

*Outdated information.  Because regional offices uploaded data to the
central office in batch mode, iformation was frequently outdated by 
the time it was processed and distributed to Hacienda's regional or
local offices.  This resulted in lost collection time and inaccurate
address information.

*No querying or analysis capabilities.  Workers were unable to conduct
queries and searaches because they lacked on-line access to the
information.  Therefore, they couldn't determine trends or patterns
that would help them to uncover tax evaders.

*Paper inundation.  Because Hacienda was largely paper-based, information
was difficult to locate, time consuming to find, and frequently lost.

Informix and UNIX Enable Decentralization

Hacienda installed INFORMIX-Online on 75 Hewlett-Packard 9000 servers at
central and regional offices, and INFORMIX-SE on 300 Unisys 6000 PCs at
local offices throughout the country.  OnLine is Informix's powerful,
on-line transaction processing database server that provides high
performance, high availability, and multimedia support.  Because of the
scalability and portablity of the Informix/UNIX solution, Hacienda could
simply recompile its database applications and port them across the range
of Haciena's hardware--form large symmetrical multiprocessor servers to
PCs.

"It used to be too costly to automate smaller offices that monitored only
2,000 taxpayers," says Hernando. "But UNIX provides us the low cost hardware
and Informix the portability so that we can run the same applications on the
largest or smallest machines cost effectively."

As Mexico's population grows, the scalability of the UNIX machines will
be essential for managing Hacienda's expansion.  "Today in Mexico City
we might have one machine handling a geographic area, " says Hernando.
"But as Mexico City expands we can easily shift the applications to
another machine and divide the records in two.  This way we can handle the
work load without having to increase the size of the machine.  Informix's
scalability gives us the flexibility to tailor the solution to meet our
needs."

INFORMIX-4GL:  The Preferred Language

Hacienda uses the INFORMIX-4GL Product Family, which includes the
INFORMIX-4GL Rapid Development System, INFORMIX-4GL Interactive Debugger
and INFORMIX-4GL Compiler.  The Informix fourth-generation language (4GL)
application development environment has become the 4GL of choice among
Hacienda programmers.

"Our programmers have what I cal '4GLitis'--they want to do everything
with 4GL," says Hernando.  "Whenever they face a programming challenge
in C, they look for ways to use INFORMIX-4GL."

The INFORMIX-4GL Rapid Development System enables Hacienda developers
to build applications that port easily from Hewlett-Packard multiprocessor
platforms to Unisys, AT&T, and Hewlett-Packard uniprocessor platforms.
And the INFORMIX-4GL Compiler transforms INFORMIX-4GL source code into
standard C code, providing Hacienda applications with unparalleled speed
and its end users with quick response time.

A Stable Economy and Government

Thanks to the new direction Mexico embarked upon in 1988, Mexico's
economy is prospering and its government is fiscally strong. "Today
the average Mexican knows that the goernment is managing information
more efficiently," says Hernando.  "They know there is a higher risk
of getting caught if they don't comply with the tax laws.  The positive
side is that it makes people feel that the tax burden is being more
equitably distributed and people are paying their fare share.  Our
Informix solution has been a major success, and has helped to stabilize
our economy and government."

Informix Opens Mexican Office

Informix is on the move in Mexico and Latin America, and to ensure the
continued success of our end-user customers in those areas, Informix
has established asubsidiary in Mexico City. This new office allows
Informix to get closer to its customers and distributors, provide more
extensive sales and technical support, and ultimately deliver the right
products and customer service to the Latin American market.

Informix Software de Me'xico
S.A. de C.V.
Monte Pelvoux 111
Lomas de Chapultepec
11000 Me'xico, D.F.

In addition to Hacienda, Informix has an impressive list of customers
in Mexico, including:

Comisio'n Federal de Electricidad
Ferrocarriles Nacionales de Me'xico
Instituto de Seguridad y Servicios Sociales de los Trabajadores del Estado
Nacional Monte de Piedad
Petroleos de Mexico
Seguridad Nacional
Tecnolo'gico de Monterrey
Tele'fonos de Me'xico
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Newsgroups: soc.culture.mexican