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The Source: Mexico Tax Reforms Have Texas Implications | Fredericksburg Road Through History

The SABER Institute
The SABER Institute showed Mexican nationals spent over $2.5 billion in South Texas last year.

In the first segment:

An old joke among Mexican nationals is that San Antonio is the safest city in northern Mexico. But San Antonio will be immune to the recently approved tax reforms taking effect next month.

The sales tax in northern Mexico will jump to 16 percent, nearly twice what we pay here in San Antonio. Mexican Nationals have been spending their dollars in San Antonio for a long time. According to the Saber Institute, in South Texas, they spent more than $2.5 billion in 2012.

What will it look like when these sales taxes happen? What will it mean in border towns whose maquiladoras are taxed?

We talk with Tom Fullerton, economics professor and chair for the Study of Trade in the Americas at the University of Texas El Paso, and Pete Garcia, executive director of the United States-Mexico Chamber of Commerce for this region. 

In the second segment:

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The Institute of Texan Cultures takes us back in time with their exhibit, Traveling on Fredericksburg Road: 120 years in 12 miles. The exhibit traces the thoroughfare as a time capsule for the whole area. 

Put together by Ian Caine, professor of architecture at UTSA, and Sara Gould, lead curatorial historian at ITC, the exhibit is part study in urban planning and architecture and part oral history. We are joined by the creators to see what Fredericksburg road can tell us about San Antonio past and present.

  * The Source airs at 3 p.m. on KSTX 89.1 FM - audio from this show will be posted by 5:30 p.m.

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Paul Flahive can be reached at Paul@tpr.org