Source: RJTV, Bom Dia Rio, Globo Comunidade (Rio de Janeiro - RJ) -16/05/2012

Company would have stopped collecting more than R $ 600 million to the coffers.

Grupo Petrópolis says it will assist in the investigations.

The Secretariat of Finance of the State of São Paulo, the Public Ministry, the Civil Police and the Military Police launched this Wednesday (16) Operation Czar in the region of Sorocaba (SP). The lawsuit aims to combat crime against taxation, in addition to other illicit acts allegedly committed by companies that are part of a large economic group that operates in the beverage segment and is responsible for the Crystal, Itaipava, Lokal and Petra brands.

About 80 public agents were mobilized, including prosecutors, prosecutors for income from the Secretariat of Finance and police from the Civil and Military Police of the State of São Paulo. The agents will carry out search and seizure warrants at a brewery belonging to the Petrópolis Group. The company is located in the city of Boituva (SP). The group's press office issued a note on the matter and says it will assist in the investigations.

With this operation, the intention is to gather evidence that will allow the verification of irregularities and identify those responsible. If it is confirmed that all transfer operations were simulated, the economic group would have stopped paying more than R $ 600 million to the coffers of the State of São Paulo in the period from 2006 to 2011.

According to the investigations, the main São Paulo company in the group would be evading the ICMS due to tax substitution through the performance of simulated beverage transfer operations between the São Paulo establishment and one of its branches, located in another state.

As a manufacturer of a product subject to tax substitution (a situation in which an establishment, usually the industry, collects all the ICMS in the production chain in advance), the company should collect both the ICMS itself, due to its operations, and the incident in the other stages. circulation of goods to the State, that is, the wholesale and retail sales tax.

The purpose of the simulation was to avoid paying the tax for tax substitution, which would be due to the supposed state of destination.

Investigations began in 2011 and it is suspected that numerous beverage distributors inside and outside the state of São Paulo would, in fact, be controlled, in fact, by the economic group itself, in order to hide their participation in the fraudulent scheme.