O jornal Valor Econômico on the 28th of October, in São Paulo, the seminar O Debtor Contumaz and Livre Concorrência. The event is sponsored by ETCO-Brazilian Institute of Ethics in Competition and will discuss topics such as typification of permanent debtors, differentiated inspection regimes, market impacts and limits on free competition.
The seminar is aimed at presidents, CEOs, lawyers, corporate legal department executives, public farm attorneys, federal judges, judiciary officials and members of the judiciary and legislative branch.
The event will take place at the Intercontinental hotel, from 8:30 am to 13:XNUMX pm.
The persistent tax debtor causes serious damage to the competitive environment, as ETCO has shown in this newsletter.
Everardo Maciel is the new chairman of the ETCO Advisory Board
New President of the ETCO Advisory Council talks about smuggling, evasion, fiscal war and the country's bad time
Tax attorney Everardo Maciel is the new chairman of the Advisory Board of ETCO-Brazilian Institute of Ethics in Competition. He took up the post on September 1, replacing Ambassador Marcílio Marques Moreira, who has held the position since 2006. The Advisory Board is made up of prominent names from various segments of society, such as lawyers, diplomats, politicians and businessmen, and has the role of guiding the direction of the Institute.
Federal Revenue Secretary under President Fernando Henrique Cardoso and currently working as a professor and consultant, Everardo has been on the Advisory Council since it was created in 2004. “It is a huge responsibility to succeed someone with the intellectual value and importance of Ambassador Marcílio Marques Moreira, ”he says.
Below are excerpts from the interview he gave ETCO in Action.
How did you receive the mission to chair the ETCO Advisory Council?
Everardo Maciel: ETCO is a rare initiative by the business community to develop fair competition in Brazil. I have been a member of the Advisory Board since the foundation and have followed all the Institute's initiatives. My intention is to continue the work that Ambassador Marcílio has been doing brilliantly. I just want to increase the internal discussion to form or strengthen ETCO's convictions regarding the themes in which it operates. What is our view on combating smuggling? How should the Institute position itself in relation to the fiscal war? I intend to deepen the understanding of these issues within the Advisory Council, including contributions from outside experts, to help guide the direction of the Institute.
What is your view on the current moment?
Everardo Maciel: Brazil is experiencing a deep crisis, which has an important economic dimension, inserted, however, in a bigger crisis, that of values. This situation has a negative impact on the materials that are the subject of ETCO. Tax evasion, piracy and smuggling, for example, tend to increase, due to the recession. Brazil is in danger of falling back on the ETCO's interest topics.
Support for anti-corruption movements is one of ETCO's themes. How do you see the new laws that were created to combat this evil?
Everardo Maciel: I have many questions. In Brazil, there is a tendency to create laws of occasion. A problem arises, a new law is enacted, the effectiveness of which is never assessed. It is necessary to assess whether this new legislation is in fact able to reduce corruption. There is a risk of not achieving the objective and still causing uncertainties that harm the economy. The name 'Anticorruption Law' also makes this type of reflection difficult. If you ask questions, you risk being labeled in favor of corruption. We need to discuss this matter further in the Advisory Council, in order to reach a conclusion.
Why can't Brazil reduce smuggling?
Everardo Maciel: Because insisting only on the path of repression does not work. Today, I understand that there is no way to tackle smuggling without a powerful international cooperation program. I am not talking about just signing agreements of intent, shaking hands and saying that we are going to act together, but about more consistent work, which takes into account mutual interests, acts on the reasons across the border.
Are you referring to Paraguay?
Everardo Maciel: Namely, Paraguay. We will never resolve smuggling without a program that considers Paraguay's development. There are similarities to the migration crisis that we are seeing in Europe. There is no use trying to close the borders, build walls, put an electric fence. People at risk of being hit by bombs or starving to death in their countries will do anything to break through the blockade. Anyone who believes that smuggling can be solved only through repression should spend a few days on the Brazilian border with Paraguay, seeing the number of small planes that fly over the region.
Has Brazil tried to follow this path?
Everardo Maciel: When I was Secretary of Revenue, President Fernando Henrique charged me with negotiating a broad agreement with Paraguay. In a few months, we signed an agreement. Unfortunately, diplomacy follows a very slow pace and the agreement only came to be ratified by Congress already under President Lula, when circumstances were different. The Paraguayan Senate ended up rejecting the agreement.
How to reduce tax evasion?
Everardo Maciel: The solution requires simple rules and tax burden at reasonable levels. From the point of view of technology, Brazil already has one of the most modern collection systems in the world. I am proud to have participated, in ETCO, in the implementation of electronic invoices. One of our biggest problems today is not the evasion of the grocery store, but that practiced by large economic groups through illicit avoidance, abusive tax planning. Billions of reais flow through these mechanisms that the country continues to neglect.
Will we be able to carry out tax reform?
Everardo Maciel: We will not have tax reform. People dream of creating another tax system, but there are no paradigms to follow. If you put together the top ten Brazilian tax experts and ask them to create a new system, in the end we will have at least eleven different models. Tax systems are cultural models, which evolve continuously. In Brazil, there is the illusion of reformism, on the assumption that reforms are a panacea for all ills. Tax reform is not an event, it is a process.
How to solve the fiscal war?
Everardo Maciel: Fiscal war is harmful competition, violation of law. We cannot, however, confuse it with lawful tax competition, which has existed in the world since taxes were created. Brazil needs to decide to what extent it accepts tax competition. Today, we live in chaos. There are no laws, and the ones that do exist do not contain sanctions, which is the same as not existing. Unfortunately, I believe that we are far from resolving this issue, because we have not even taken the first step, which is to understand the problem. It is like the dilemma of Alice [from the book Alice in Wonderland], who asks the cat to help her find the way out, but cannot say where she wants to go. And the cat says: "In that case, it doesn't matter which way". To resolve the fiscal war, we must first be clear about what our objectives are.
The sum of all Brazilian tax debts has already reached the mark of R $ 1,1 trillion. The calculation is from the National Union of National Treasury Attorneys (Sinprofaz) and considers the position in July this year. The largest share - R $ 723,3 billion - involves large debtors, that is, companies that together represent less than 1% of all legal entities registered in Brazil, points out the union.
As of this Wednesday (1), the mandatory exchange of the system of issuing and transmitting invoices to retailers in the State of São Paulo begins.
The former ECF (Tax Coupon Issuer), which issue the note on tax paper, will gradually be replaced by the SAT (Electronic Tax Coupon Authenticator and Transmitter System), which require a digital signature and automate the transmission of banknotes to the government.
The change is mainly aimed at making tax evasion more difficult. “By receiving the bills electronically, the government is able to monitor the establishments and improve the crossing of tax information”, says Araquen Pa-go o, president of the Brazilian Association of Commercial Automation.
Any store that starts operating after Wednesday will have to adopt the system - this is also true for new business branches that already exist. Companies with annual sales of R $ 120 thousand or more will have to replace their ECF equipment with five years of use until October (see box). Even those who already use the electronic invoice (NFC-e), which sends the notes through an application, need to have at least one SAT in their store, to be able to continue issuing the documents even when the internet fails.
The City of São Paulo published in the edition of this Tuesday, 16, of the Official daily the resignation of two more people related to the Mafia of the Tax on Services (ISS), group suspected of having facilitated the evasion of R $ 500 million of the City Hall between 2009 and 2012.
The 12 people linked to company 101 do Brasil Industrial, arrested for two weeks in the Arion 2 operation, in Joinville, had their freedom granted by the Santa Catarina Court of Justice.
Managers and employees of the manufacturer of the energy drink Red Horse had been preventively arrested in a mega operation organized by the Special Action Group to Combat Organized Crime (Gaeco), the Public Ministry, the Federal Revenue Service, the Finance Department and the police.
The company, known as Caninha 101, is suspected of evading more than R $ 50 million and is being investigated for crimes of criminal organization, tax evasion, ideological falsehood and money laundering.
The TJSC understood that there is no need to keep the prison, since the measures of search, seizure and kidnapping of assets were sufficient to guarantee public order. In addition, the Court believes that the suspects are no longer at risk of interfering in the investigation.
The National Institute of Metrology, Quality and Technology (Inmetro) makes available for public consultation, until June 26, 2015, a proposal for a regulation, unprecedented in Brazil, aimed at liquid fuel metering pumps. The requirement provides for a new generation of measuring instruments, which even includes the creation of exclusive software that will also allow the consumer to have power of surveillance at gas stations. Through the application store, it will be possible to download a program for mobile phones, also created by Inmetro technicians, which will provide the consumer with a reliable reading of the supply data. With this measure, he will be able to check, whenever filling, if the values shown on the pump display are correct or fraudulent.
The proposal also includes the creation of fuel metering pumps with encryption, along the same lines adopted in bank card transactions, which intends to curb the current frauds found. According to the report of the inspectors of the Institutes of Weights and State Measures Institutes of Weights and State Measures (delegated bodies of Inmetro), the deceit happens in the “path” between the fuel volume measuring device and the pump display. This software, developed by Inmetro technicians, will control the trajectory of the information from the volume measurement to the pump display.
The paper industry is stepping up efforts to combat tax fraud in the sector. A campaign seeks to make consumers aware of the use of immune paper (sold tax-free) and measures are being adopted to curb criminal practices.
"The paper sector sees the fruits of collective efforts to fight fraud involving paper with tax immunity growing, which should be used exclusively for the printing of books and periodicals, as provided by the Brazilian Constitution". The statement is from the president of the National Association of Paper Distributors, Vitor Paulo de Andrade, commenting on the recent developments of the Immune Paper Operation, of the Federal Revenue.
Earlier this month, the Federal Prosecutor's Office in São Paulo denounced 11 people involved in fraudulent importation for money laundering, criminal organization and misrepresentation. Between 2009 and 2013, the group hid and concealed the origin, movement and ownership of around R $ 1,1 billion from various crimes, such as embezzlement and tax evasion. For this, it used shell companies, fake invoices and "oranges".
The criminal organization took advantage of the tax immunity granted to paper intended for books, newspapers and periodicals. However, instead of reselling the imported product without taxes to buyers linked to such purposes, the defendants passed it on to wholesale and retail companies with a price 20% lower than the market price, which generated millionaire profits. "The product is exempt from taxes to encourage education and culture, but ends up being diverted to the taxed paper market, resulting in unfair and fraudulent competition," says Andrade.
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