Revenue: Anitta and Bonner were the target of illegal access – 03/03/2023 – Politics

Presenters Luciano Huck and Willian Bonner, from TV Globo, singer Anitta, participants of the reality show Big Brother Brasil and even former president Jair Bolsonaro (PL) had tax data accessed irregularly, shows an unprecedented document from the Federal Revenue that The Sheet had access.

The names of these taxpayers are on the list presented in April 2021 by the Federal Revenue to the TCU (Union Court of Auditors) in the course of an investigation into inquiries without justification to tax data.

The cases occurred from 2018 to 2020. Although the date coincided with the irregular accesses made by the then head of intelligence at the Revenue against Bolsonaro family disaffections (2019), the irregularities found are not directly related to this episode.

Unlike the case of Ricardo Feitosa (the head of intelligence who accessed data from the prosecutor in the “cracks” case and two politicians who broke with the Bolsonaro family), none of the eight servers investigated or punished were part of the Revenue leadership.

Feitosa’s defense denies that he has committed a breach of secrecy.

The list delivered to the TCU has administrative agents, a technologist, a service assistant, a technical assistant and only one tax auditor.

This ease of access to confidential data, which can only be searched for legal reasons, led the TCU audit to conclude that there are failures in preventing unmotivated access to tax data of politically exposed persons (known by the acronym PEPs).

“There are no automated mechanisms (apart from profile control) to prevent such undue access, or to ensure that the body’s internal affairs department investigates and punishes possible abuses by tax auditors”, says a judgment approved at the end of last year.

The tax authorities opened two investigations into possible irregular access to Bolsonaro’s data, according to the list. One of those responsible was administrative agent Odilon Alves Filho, who was suspended for 60 days and paid a fine of R$5,000 to end a criminal case against him.

Former first lady Michelle Bolsonaro also had her data accessed irregularly by an operational agent, punished with a 90-day suspension. He also viewed information from former minister Ciro Gomes (PDT).

The two cases occurred during the 2018 election, when Bolsonaro and Ciro were presidential candidates.

A tax analyst was also suspended for 40 days for having improperly entered the tax data of Senator Flávio Bolsonaro (PL-RJ) and his wife, Fernanda Bolsonaro, in January 2019. He was punished with 40 days of suspension.

The investigation into the alleged unmotivated access to Bonner, Huck and Anitta’s data has not yet been concluded.

An administrative technical assistant from the Customs Surveillance of Santana do Livramento (RS) is suspected of having researched, from 2018 to 2020, their data and that of 20 other artists, including, according to the Revenue listing, former members of Big Brother Brasil, reality show show on TV Globo.

The data sent by the Revenue also show that an investigation has been opened against a different service assistant in Belo Horizonte on suspicion of irregularly issuing 300 tax reports in less than two minutes. An administrative agent is also suspected of having accessed data from then-federal deputy Rôney Nemer (DF), according to the report.

Illegal access to Revenue data came under the TCU’s sights in 2019 after the disclosure of a Revenue investigation on Minister Gilmar Mendes, of the STF (Federal Supreme Court), and his wife, lawyer Guiomar Mendes.

The Revenue Service denied that there had been irregular consultations with the magistrate’s tax data, stating that the minister was the subject of a preliminary internal investigation that did not evolve into a formal inspection procedure.

In order to verify the data protection of politicians, judges and prosecutors, the TCU carried out an audit at the Federal Revenue Service. One of the steps was to question the Tax Authorities about the occurrence of undue access and how they were treated.

To the TCU, the Revenue stated that adopting locks for accessing PEP data would make day-to-day inspections more difficult, in addition to creating different access rules for a specific group of taxpayers.

Minister Bruno Dantas, rapporteur of the case and now president of the TCU, did not agree with the argument and voted for the determination of the Tax Authorities so that, within four months, they present internal controls to prevent unmotivated access by PEPs. The judgment was approved in December last year in plenary.

“I understand that any system limitations should not serve as a justification for not implementing necessary controls to fulfill the legal duty of safeguarding tax secrecy, of any citizen. That is to say, the system must conform to compliance with the legal provision, and not the opposite.”

Dantas’ vote also shows gaps in monitoring the work of tax auditors. He claims that the justification requirement for accessing data from the Revenue system is low.

“Whenever any Revenue server accesses the DIRPF portal [Declaração de Imposto de Renda de Pessoa Física]he must inform the justification for access (programming, others, etc.). It turns out that these justifications are generic, which can make it difficult for the supervisor to carry out effective supervision when receiving the alert”, wrote the TCU audit.

“For example, if a server in the inspection scheduling area informs ‘scheduling’ in the access justification, this access will apparently be correct/motivated, but such justification does not allow the supervisor to verify the regularity of the access, which could be done, by example, if the record of the dossier/process number on which the query was based was also required.”

The audit also questions the concept of “tax authority” adopted by the Revenue, according to which, according to the TCU, the performance of an auditor is not subject to review. He transcribed a judgment from 2020 that points out weaknesses in the practice.

“According to this concept, the acts performed by the tax auditor of the Revenue as a ‘tax authority’ are normally not reviewed, neither hierarchically nor by peers. It should be noted that this concept has no legal provision and derives from a construction internal legal system and endorsed by studies carried out by the Directorate of Technical Studies of the National Sindifisco”, states the court.

“The team also found this practice in face-to-face meetings with members of Copes, in which it was stated that the tax auditors declare themselves to be authorities and that the acts issued internally within the respective coordinations (Copes and Cofis) could not be reviewed, in view of that ‘what the tax authority writes cannot be changed’. That is, there is no reanalysis of the merits in the inspection process.”