Legal Consultant - São Paulo / SP - LAWS - 09/05/2013

A proposal for the Simplification and Rationalization Program for the Tax System was delivered on Monday (6/5) to President Dilma Rousseff. Coordinated by the São Paulo Commercial Association, the text was prepared by a working group composed of the Brazilian Institute of Ethics in Competition (ETCO), the Federation of Goods, Services and Tourism of São Paulo and the Union of Accounting Service Companies, Advisory, Expertise, Information and Research of the State of São Paulo

The document brings together a set of rules to improve the Brazilian tax system, including a proposal for a constitutional amendment, a draft supplementary law and a draft ordinary law. The three measures are connected and can serve to simplify and streamline processes, provide greater legal certainty, change some provisions of the National Tax Code and adapt the legislation to the current demands of Brazil.

According to the executive president of ETCO, Roberto Abdenur, “the complexity of the Brazilian tax system is today one of the main motivators of tax evasion and informality that hamper the process of formalizing the economy and, ultimately, the country's development itself ”.

Among the measures suggested in the PEC is the veto to issue a provisional measure on tax matters, to avoid legislative excesses of the Executive. The proposal argues that Constitutional Amendment 32, of 2001, which prohibits the increase or reduction of taxes on imports, exports, industrialized products and credit operations (present in article 153 of the Constitution) and extraordinary tax provided for cases of external war or its imminence (foreseen by article 154 of the CF) was not enough to restrict the changes.

In order to reduce legal uncertainty, it is suggested that the minimum period for the start of tax liability should be six months, and not the 90 days provided for by the Constitution. The entities also defend the revocation of the impediment of hiring by the government or of granting benefits to companies in debt with the social security system.

In the draft laws, the regulation of financing and refinancing of tax debts, amnesty restrictions are claimed so that this type of benefit is granted only in cases of calamities and debts of small value. It is also suggested that the Public Treasury must publish, in the previous year, the fine mesh criteria, in addition to setting maximum values ​​for fines. With information from the ETCO Press Office.