Source: Intelog - RS, 06/07/2009

There are at least three ways to evade taxes in the fuel sector, especially in the purchase and sale of alcohol, two partners of a distributor in Londrina, whose names will not be revealed at their request, reported the report. We only sell gasoline and diesel oil, because the alcohol trade is impractical in Londrina, said one of the businessmen.

One of the forms of evasion is the addition of water to anhydrous alcohol - an untaxed product, as it is destined exclusively to be added to gasoline - and its later sale as hydrated alcohol, that to be used in alcohol cars. In this case, there is evasion and adulteration. There are also distributors who manage to place the alcohol from the plant directly at the stations, failing to collect at least 6% of the ICMS. The third way is when the mills collude and sell alcohol without invoice.

Tax evasion is responsible for the extremely complicated market in Londrina, as admitted by the president of the Paraná Resellers Union (Sindicombustíveis), Roberto Fregonese. For almost a decade, consumer protection agencies have struggled to try to regularize the sector; businessmen respond to criminal actions for crimes against the economic order, such as the practice of a cartel; some have already been arrested.

Last week, retailers told the report that there is dumping on the market, a criminal way of leveling prices below cost and wiping out competition. The entrepreneurs themselves admitted to having lowered alcohol to R $ 0,99 because they were subsidized by distributors. The price went up again last Wednesday, on average, 40%. Gasoline rose about 10%.

Entrepreneurs said the problem of fuel prices starts at the distributors themselves. Some have no basis, that is, they operate from small offices only selling invoices, as is the case with the second type of evasion.

ANP (National Petroleum Agency) requires that every distributor have a place where the fuel that comes from the plant, in the case of alcohol, is deposited, accounted for and inspected. These baseless distributors have none of that, said one distributor.

According to the businessman, the distributor goes to the plant, loads the truck and does the distribution directly at the stations. Sometimes an invoice is used for multiple sales: they pay the tax only once.

Operational problems

Recently, the State Revenue has stopped demanding the seal on the fuel pumps, which would allow the owner of the station to tamper with the quantity sold, paying less taxes. The same agency also ended the tax posts, which were supposed to approach trucks loaded with alcohol to check whether the tax was paid at the plant. This allows plants to sell fuel while evading taxes.

This, incidentally, is another problem pointed out by entrepreneurs: the way of collecting the tax. In the case of gasoline and diesel oil, Petrobras collects all applicable taxes. The sale of alcohol is different and the collection goes through two phases. The plant must collect 12% and the distributor, 6%, in addition to the tax substitution. But clandestine distributors manage to evade 6% and sell the cheapest fuel to the gas station; it is obvious that the owner of the post knows this, because when he gets a lower price it is because he bought the product without a grade, reported one of the entrepreneurs.

For them, the ideal would be for the plant to be responsible for collecting all taxes. So, when the distributors went to buy, the price would be the same for everyone. And it would be much easier to inspect the little more than 20 plants in Paraná than all the distributors and stations, explained the businessman. What we want is to compete on equal terms and be able to sell alcohol; we don't want to become tax evaders, added the other.