Haddad says that the IRS is investigating alleged irregularities in the tax benefit program for event companies

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Minister of Finance stated that there are signs of illegality in Perse, a program created to stimulate the events sector. Government issued a provisional measure to limit the scope of the program. The Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, stated this Wednesday (7) that the Federal Revenue Service will carry out an investigation into alleged irregularities in a program that granted benefits to companies in the events sector. The minister referred to the Events Sector Emergency Resumption Program (Perse). Perse was created at the beginning of the Covid-19 pandemic to benefit the cultural sector. It was then extended by Congress, in May 2023, until 2026. According to the minister, the Federal Revenue Service has already sent data about the program for evaluation by the agency’s intelligence area. “What the IRS does as a routine in the face of Perse’s situation, a serious situation — more than R$ 17 billion in waivers [fiscal] — is to take data to the Revenue’s intelligence sector, which will investigate possible irregularities,” said Haddad. “And there are signs that this happened. Companies that used the CNAE, for example, to pretend to be in the events sector and were not in the events sector. This is undergoing scrutiny,” said Haddad. The acronym CNAE stands for National Classification of Economic Activities and varies depending on the type of economic activity. The next step, according to Haddad, is the production of a report by the Federal Revenue on Perse , gathering data from all companies that benefited from the program – material that will later be shared with the National Congress. The minister added that the document will be produced “quickly”, but depends on the “normalization” of the Federal Revenue workforce. At the moment, the entity’s tax auditors are on strike, but Haddad stated that a meeting is scheduled for Thursday (08) with the aim of discussing a proposed agreement. “So now there are two paths. The first, investigate what happened last year. The second, to bring order to the program, which actually exceeded what was expected by 4 times.” According to Haddad, the program cost around R$17 billion last year, while what was initially expected was an expense of R$4 billion per year. year. At the end of last year, the government sent a provisional measure to Congress that imposes limits on Perse. This initiative was not well received by parliamentarians, especially from Centrão, and became another reason for Congress’s dissatisfaction with the Palácio do Planalto. A provisional measure comes into force as soon as it is published, but the Chamber and Senate can block it. Sources in the government’s economic area stated that, among the CNPJs investigated, there is one from a shopping mall that had put on a show in the food court and, therefore, if declared as an events company. According to the sources, tax auditors are reviewing the social contracts of these companies to verify whether they in fact irregularly used the event sector company category to obtain the benefits of the program.

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