IR reform could guarantee permanent aid, Lira tells CNN

The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), said this Friday (5) to the CNN that if the reform of the Income Tax (IR) – with the taxation of dividends – had been approved in the Senate, the government would have resources to guarantee the creation of a permanent aid program.

“An alternative we built, the Income Tax, for example (…) 20 thousand Brazilians in the country did not pay tax, they received dividends free – each one was a walking Switzerland,” Lira said in a telephone interview.

“There are BRL 330 billion – look how much aid was not paid with that – that every year 20,000 super-rich Brazilians received without paying BRL 1 in tax. The Chamber established 15% of this amount, reducing the corporate tax to promote jobs and growth”, he continued.

According to Lira, the amount collected from the taxation of these dividends would be the source for the creation of a permanent program of R$ 300, within the federal government’s Teto de Gatos.

“This has not been in the Senate and I don’t see anyone talking about it, no one demanding it, because, in reality, this IR project breaks stigmas, changes paradigms, affects the status quo and many interests.”

At the beginning of October, the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), stated that it was not reasonable for the reform of the IR to be a condition for the government’s new social program.

Lira also said that when the Ceiling Law – which he said “needs adjustments” – was approved, there were some prerequisites: approving the labor, social security, tax and administrative reforms.

“We are still halfway through the administrative reform, without the support of the population that wants a lighter, more modern state, which prices a service in favor of the population. We are still without the tax, because the Chamber voted the IR and the Senate did not vote”, he declared.

“A PEC 110 [que altera o Sistema Tributário Nacional], in an agreement between the Chamber and the Senate, has been available since March to the rapporteur in the Senate and has not been included until today. We need to deal with these situations in the agreements that were made so that the spending ceiling is stabilized once and for all.”

Approval of the PEC of Precatório in 2nd round

The president of the Chamber also stated that the vote in the second round of the PEC dos Precatórios, scheduled for Tuesday (9), will be approved with more than the 312 votes registered this week.

“We are in plan A, we did not lose the first round and we are going to win the second round, with the help of all the parties that voted. I do not believe in radical changes because there was no lack of knowledge of the text”, said the congressman.

Lira was asked about a possible plan B in case the vote was rejected in the plenary. “We have plan A and we can never speak with perspective. This question creates insecurity. Plan A is in effect, it is being discussed with great caution, conversation, prudence, with a lot of work – without spreading embers, without hurting party autonomy”, he said.

“We will maintain and increase [os votos favoráveis], because we voted this first round with only 456 out of 513 deputies [presentes]. Many will come next week, let’s increase the quorum and, of course, the prospect of voting in favour.”

Regarding the possibility of the value of Auxílio Brasil being less than the R$ 400 intended by the federal government, the president of the Chamber said that this type of speculation is “a thing of the opposition”.

“Those who keep playing with this instability of values ​​is always the opposition, which paid R$ 190 [no Bolsa Família], but when it comes to discussions, it wants R$ 600, R$ 700, R$ 1000, which would make any program unfeasible”, he said.

“We all know that Brazil’s problem is not financial. The collection this year will grow more than R$ 250 billion, even though we spent more than R$ 700 billion last year outside the ceiling – authorized by the PEC of the war. Our problem is not financial, there is no lack of resources. Our problem is precisely budgetary. The payment of court orders, within the Ceiling, as provided for in the Spending Ceiling Law, sets the state machinery in a slack. “

End of the Car Wash

The congressman also said that he considers that possible candidacies of former judge Sergio Moro, who should join the Podemos next week, and Deltan Dallagnol, who asked to resign from the position of prosecutor of the Federal Public Ministry (MPF) and is studying a possible migration to the policy “would annihilate Operation Lava Jato”.

“[Essas candidaturas] they would make it clear that the objective of the operation, with all the successes it had, was always political protagonism, the political action to make use of it”, said Lira.

“Now, prosecutor Dallagnol, who committed numerous abuses in the name of what he is proposing today, is fleeing from the punishments of the [Conselho Nacional do Ministério Público] CNMP – there are more than 40 processes, including the process stopped at the Supreme Court, in view of the minister [Edson] Fachin,” he continued.

“And then he comes to the field of politics and I hope he’s successful, he can go to Congress and there we can have good debates if the population understands that he deserves for the work he’s done.”