Haddad meets with Senate president under opposition criticism

Ministers Fernando Haddad, of Finance, and Simone Tebet, of Planning, will meet this Tuesday (11) with the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), to negotiate the processing of the tax reform project approved last week in Chamber of Deputies. The government intends to have a rapporteur who has the ability to negotiate between the senators and that the discussions do not drag on after the parliamentary recess.

However, the arrival of the text to the Senate with the possible acceleration of the procedure is already criticized by the opposition. Behind-the-scenes information indicates that the discussions at the Economic Affairs Committee (CAE), which defined the collegiate this Monday (10) with the rapporteur of Senator Efraim Filho (União Brasil-PB), should not last for a long time.

Senator Izalci Lucas (PSDB-DF) criticized the “hasty” vote in the Chamber and defended that the text be discussed more widely in the CAE before being forwarded to a vote in plenary. According to him, there are still many questions to be answered by the government.

“In this text from the Chamber, there is no mention of a liberal professional or what is going to happen. If you play, it increases by 200%, because it has a series of problems. […]. How are you going to talk about a tax reform, in which the weight of service provision, 70% is labor? And that has more than 20% charges on top of the sheet? We are going to carry out the reform, we are going to add another 25% ”, he said in a speech from the gallery at the end of the afternoon.

Still according to the parliamentarian, the text brings many questions referred to a complementary law, and the rates are not defined in the original text and will be established by the Senate, considering the specific situation of each state. These matters should be discussed in the CAE to review the text and make the necessary changes.

Izalci also questioned the lack of information shared by the government on how taxes are collected in the country. He defended that the Senate has access to all references about segments that pay taxes, rates, collections, Simples Nacional, presumed profit and real profit. And he stressed the importance of this data to support decisions and ensure legal certainty.

The criticism of the passage of the text in the House and Senate occurred on the same day that Haddad announced that the government will send the second phase of the tax reform even before Congress finishes processing the first one. According to the minister, the project that will deal with income will be forwarded with the 2024 Budget, by the end of August.

“The budget piece will assume the approval of these measures by Congress. Otherwise, there will have to be a restriction on the budget”, he said this Monday (10).