Corregidor says he was under pressure in the Bolsonaro case – 02/28/2023 – Politics

The Internal Revenue Service inspector, João José Tafner, claims to have suffered pressure last year from the former tax authorities command to file a disciplinary process open against the server who unreasonably accessed confidential tax data from opponents of the Bolsonaro clan.

The assertions, made internally by the current head of the Revenue, resulted in the initiation of an investigation by the Ministry of Finance’s Corregedoria.

Such as Sheet revealed this Monday (27), the head of intelligence at the Federal Revenue at the beginning of the Jair Bolsonaro administration, Ricardo Feitosa, accessed and copied in July 2019 confidential tax data from opponents of the then president.

They are the coordinator of investigations into the alleged “cracks” scheme —the then Attorney General of Rio Eduardo Gussem— and two politicians who had broken with the presidential family, businessman Paulo Marinho and former minister Gustavo Bebianno.

According to internal documents and testimonials from people connected to the case, Tafner accused the then Federal Revenue Secretary Julio Cesar Vieira Gomes and the then undersecretary general, José de Assis Ferraz Neto, of pressuring him last year to close the case and not punish Feitosa.

Vieira Gomes and Ferraz Neto left their positions in December, with the end of the Bolsonaro government.

A Sheet confirmed with different sources of information that the current Secretary of Revenue, Robinson Barreirinhas, transcribed Tafner’s accusations in a minute and sent them to the internal affairs department of the Ministry of Finance, which has already opened an investigation.

According to these reports, Barreirinhas saw a possible act of prevarication, since Tafner would not have denounced the case or taken measures at the time of the alleged pressures.

The new head of the Treasury is not a tax auditor and came to the position through the hands of Minister Fernando Haddad (Finance), for whom he was secretary in the São Paulo City Hall.

This minute would contain yet another accusation by Tafner, made against Barreirinhas himself. The inspector also claims to have been pressured by the current head of the Revenue to resign from his mandate in the Internal Revenue Service, which ends only in January 2025.

Tafner participated in Bolsonarist campaign acts in 2018 and even posed for photos alongside then-deputy candidate Eduardo Bolsonaro wearing a Brazilian national team shirt and a sticker from another PSL candidate.

He arrived at the position after a long public and behind-the-scenes campaign by the Bolsonaro clan to place someone aligned in the chair, as the family claimed to be persecuted through illegal data access and leaks of confidential information, especially those of Flávio Bolsonaro (PL -RJ).

Since 2020, the senator’s lawyers have claimed that their client had tax data illegally accessed by the Revenue to provide information to the Coaf report, a financial intelligence body that pointed out the suspicious movements of his former advisor Fabrício Queiroz.

The Internal Revenue Service found no evidence that the Coaf report that brought to light the “cracks” scandal involved an illegal act by tax auditors in Rio de Janeiro.

Also according to reports from people aware of the investigations, the current inspector made the statements about the alleged pressure he would have suffered from the previous management in a context of signaling to the current tax authorities that he is not a Bolsonarist.

Tafner delivered the conclusion of the investigation against Feitosa with the recommendation to dismiss the server. The final decision rests with Haddad.

The documents and information obtained by the Sheet show that the then head of intelligence at the Revenue, who stayed in the post for only four months —from May to September 2019—, accessed and extracted a copy of Income Tax from Bolsonaro’s enemies, relating to several years, in addition to promoting an investigation into other three Revenue data query systems.

There was no formal investigation by the IRS against these people that would justify these inquiries.

Feitosa says that he did not leak confidential data and that he always acted in strict compliance with legal duty.

OTHER SIDE: Former secretary denies pressure and claims that Internal Revenue department acts autonomously

Former Federal Revenue Secretary Julio Cesar Vieira Gomes denied having exerted pressure on the internal affairs department and said that the body’s opinions were always strictly followed in his management.

“The Revenue office in the previous management did not suffer or exert any pressure on the Federal Revenue Internal Affairs in order to change its opinions in disciplinary processes, all of which were fully complied with. The Internal Revenue Service is a technical body and exercises its attributions with autonomy” , he stated.

Julio Cesar commanded the Treasury from December 2021 to December 2022.

A Sheet was unable to contact Ferraz Neto.

The report sent specific questions to Tafner through the Revenue’s press office and also directly to him, in a text message, but did not receive a response.

Also contacted by the Tax Office, Barreirinhas did not comment.

In response to questions about the case, the Internal Affairs Department of the Ministry of Finance stated, in a note, that “possible investigative procedures and unconcluded correctional processes, which are in progress within the scope of this Internal Affairs Department, are of restricted access, not being allowed the disclosure of information or documents related thereto”.