Mexico tax reform bill due in 10 days-top lawmaker

MEXICO CITY, April 11 (Reuters) - Mexico's government hopes to send a long-awaited tax reform bill to Congress within 10 days, a top opposition lawmaker closely involved in the negotiations said on Wednesday.

President Felipe Calderon's conservative government is holding talks with opposition lawmakers to pass sweeping changes to one of Latin America's weakest tax systems and has said it could submit a bill to Congress by mid-April.

"I understand that the president wants to send his tax reform within 10 days, he must be fine-tuning it," Dep. Emilio Gamboa, who heads the opposition Institutional Revolutionary Party or PRI in the lower house of Congress, told reporters.

With the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution vowing not to work with the government after Calderon narrowly defeated its presidential candidate last year, the support of the PRI, the No. 3 political force in Congress, is crucial in getting the reform approved.

Another PRI lawmaker involved in the talks said this week that negotiations were centered on making food and medicine producers pay about $8 billion more in taxes.

The PRI, which ruled Mexico for 71 years before being toppled from power by former President Vicente Fox in 2000, recently helped Calderon and his ruling party approve a landmark pension bill.

But the pact between the parties is far from permanent and any unpopular tax proposals by the government could send the center-left PRI running for cover.