Haddad targets tax reform after approval of the framework – 05/24/2023 – Market

Finance Minister Fernando Haddad (PT) intends to focus his portfolio on tax reform after the Chamber of Deputies approves the rules for the new fiscal framework.

“[A aprovação] gives a lot of confidence that tax reform is the next task to be done. We are going to place the entire team of the extraordinary secretariat at the service of the rapporteur”, said the minister upon arriving at the Ministry of Finance this Wednesday morning (24).

Haddad’s expectation is that the tax reform will be voted on in the House later this semester. With its approval, he continued, “we are going to leave a decade of very low growth, from 2013 to 2022, and inaugurate a very promising cycle”.

According to the minister, the result in the Chamber shows that the government has a base in Congress depending on the project.

“What was demonstrated yesterday is that it is possible with a good project to garner expressive support from parliamentarians. It was said a lot that the composition of the Chamber and Senate would be an obstacle to the reforms that the country needs and we are seeing that with common sense, dialogue, disposition, availability, understanding, it is possible”, he pointed out.

He did not, however, make a connection between the vote and a consistent basis for the Executive.

“I do not believe that a correspondence can be made between one thing and another. I think that Congress managed to perceive something in this issue that could be detached from this discussion between the government and the opposition, because it was the country that was at stake. And when Congress makes this kind of distinction is because he is mature to help Brazil”, he opined.

The mayor, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), made statements along the same lines as Haddad. In an interview with Globo News this Wednesday, the deputy said that approval was only possible because it was considered a structural agenda for the country. The scenario, for Lira, is different in the agendas of exclusive interest of the government.

“The conditions for forwarding these votes are extremely important, and we understand that these matters that are still under discussion will have a calm, transparent discussion, logically with a different bias, because matters of more interest to the government will need greater articulation from the government to overcome in plenary the still difficulty of not having a consistent and solid base”, he said.

Lira also cited Haddad’s participation in articulating the new fiscal framework as “important, frank and calm” and mentioned that the new focus of the Chamber will be the approval of the tax reform in the coming months.

“The Chamber has once again demonstrated the maturity of Parliament. We have always defended that the fiscal framework, such as tax reform, be disconnected from this relationship between government and opposition”, added Lira.

Asked if the approval was a victory for the government or for the president of the Chamber, Haddad pondered that “everyone is feeling good today having managed, in a country that comes from a decade of polarization, almost 400 votes in the National Congress”.

“I think that President Arthur should be comfortable, the rapporteur, the Ministry of Finance is comfortable, I think that President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) must have had news to his liking”, he continued.

“You are not making a rule for a government, you are making a rule to last. Again, you can change one parameter or another four years from now, five years from now, each government will make its own schedule, but the design of sustainability is guaranteed with this score”, he pointed out.

The minister was also questioned about the document signed by PT deputies criticizing the project. The parliamentarians said that they only voted in favor in loyalty to President Lula.

“You have a design that is praised by everyone, but the parameters that were established by the rapporteur are the parameters that raised almost the entirety of the congress. It is not easy for you to get a score of 372 votes against a hundred or so. made a great effort to find a balance point and the balance point evidently in such a heterogeneous congress will end up displeasing some people”, countered the minister.

The highlights of the project should be voted on this Wednesday (24). After that, the text goes to the Senate.