After consulting TCU, the government says that tax relief does not require tax compensation

The two-year extension of the payroll exemption for 17 economic sectors, considered to be the most employing in the country, will not require tax compensation, informed the federal government, in a note from the General Secretariat of the Presidency of the Republic, this Saturday (1st).

The measure was sanctioned this Friday (31), the day the benefit would expire.

In the note, the government informs that it consulted the Federal Court of Accounts (TCU) on the need to offset the revenue and that the agency advised that there is no need for a new compensatory measure (the law already brings the increase in the Cofins-Import as compensation), since “it is an extension of an already existing tax benefit” and that the measure had been considered in the 2022 Budget Bill’s Revenue Estimate Report, made by the National Congress.

On the other hand, it was necessary to edit a Provisional Measure to revoke the need for the Union to offset the amount of the exemption for the General Social Security System (RGPS) by budget transfer, which, according to the text, ended up “causing the same expense to be computed twice within budget”.

“With the correction of the old methodology, there will be no creation of new budget expenses, which made it possible to sanction the extension of the exemption with the resources already existing in the budget. It will only be up to the Federal Revenue to update its income statements, considering the aforementioned extension”, says the text.

The government then resolves the impasse related to the need to offset the tax benefit, which reduces the Union’s revenue, to the space in the spending ceiling, even without forecasting an impact on the 2022 approved Budget for payroll tax exemption.

The note also highlights that the sanctioned legislation extends the increase in the Social Contribution rate owed by the importer of foreign goods or services from abroad (Cofins-Importação).

The payroll tax exemption has been in effect since 2011 and benefits companies by reducing labor charges. Due to the payroll exemption, the benefited companies collect rates from 1% to 4.5% on their sales, instead of 20% on the payroll.

“The sanctioned project has the capacity to offer incentives to the benefited sectors for the necessary economic recovery, mainly, in view of the reduction of fiscal burdens borne by employers”, says the note.

The sectors reached are: footwear, call center, communication, confection/clothing, civil construction, construction companies and infrastructure works, leather, manufacturing of vehicles and bodywork, machinery and equipment, animal protein, textile, information technology (IT) , communication technology (TIC), design of integrated circuits, subway-railway passenger transport, collective road transport and road freight transport.