Haddad says he has concluded a proposal for a tax rule – 03/06/2023 – Market

Minister Fernando Haddad (Finance) said this Monday (6) that he and his team closed the proposal for the set of rules that will replace the current spending cap. According to him, the format will now be presented to other members of the government’s economic area and to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT).

“I will deal with this with the economic area before presenting it, because it cannot be a proposal from the Treasury. In fact, it will be a proposal from society because it will involve a complementary law to be approved by the National Congress”, he said. “Right now, we’re [Fazenda] with our design closed,” he said.

The new fiscal framework to be proposed by the government is one of the most awaited topics by the market, as it directly interferes with expectations surrounding the trajectory of public accounts over the next few years.

Desenrola must have R$ 10 billion to renegotiate debts

Haddad also said that the fund to be used for renegotiating debts in the Desenrola program, a campaign promise by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), should be around R$ 10 billion.

The government’s idea is to create a guarantee fund, with public resources, to serve as a kind of safety cushion in negotiations between debtors and banks. Thus, the expectation is to get financial institutions to renegotiate the amounts with lower interest rates, with the guarantee that the Union will cover the loss in case of non-payment.

The program can cover 37 million Brazilians who have a combined debt of approximately R$ 50 billion. According to the minister, people who join the program will receive a discount to settle their debts – the lower the income, the greater the reduction.

“For those people [que ganham] up to two minimum wages, the discount they will receive, precisely because of the economic fragility of these families, will have to be greater. All companies that join Desenrola will have to give some discount to debtors to participate in the program”, he said.

The final design of Desenrola was promised for January, but was delayed. The model began to be conceived during the electoral campaign. According to the minister, the contracting of system development was recently authorized and only when there is a forecast of when this work will be ready will the government launch the program.

“We validated with the president the design of the Desenrola project. He authorized the contracting of the development of the system. It is a complex system because it involves private creditors. who have their name and CPF negative at Serasa or similar companies”, he said.

Members of Lula’s team hoped to wave to an important audience: women, the most indebted portion of the population. According to Haddad, the program will not have a cutoff for the interested public.

Recently, the secretary of the National Treasury, Rogério Ceron, stated that the idea would be to find resources to run the program from existing funds.

“The search is to find space in existing funds, which already have unused balances, to be able to mitigate or fully cover the impact of the program”, said Ceron. “Eventually, the Treasury may need to complement this year or the next”, added the secretary, admitting the possibility of an additional contribution of funds to the guarantee fund.

The government is closely monitoring the credit scenario, which has shown signs of slowing down due to factors such as rising default rates.

Loans granted to legal entities in the free modality, for example, fell 5.6% in January compared to December (in seasonally adjusted terms).

Recently, the Comef (Financial Stability Committee) of the Central Bank recommended that banks preserve the quality of concessions in the face of the risk of default. According to the BC collegiate, “the materialization of credit risk has occurred in operations with micro and small companies, in higher risk lines granted to individuals, in addition to specific cases in larger companies”.

An eventual “domino effect” of the Americanas case, a retailer that filed for bankruptcy in January after revealing accounting problems, has also been mentioned as a risk factor by the government and by market economists.

The minister also said that he has already given Lula the names of possible nominees for the Central Bank board. “I am bringing to his attention names that are being suggested and he will certainly try to find out about the curriculum, the history of these people”, he said.