Revenue black box shows list of tax benefits – 06/05/2023 – Market

Petrobras, vehicle assemblers and companies in the aviation sector account for 25% of the tax benefits of Import Tax, PIS/Cofins-Import and IPI (Tax on Industrialized Products), with a waiver of R$ 58 billion for the year 2021 .

The data is part of two new lists of incentives, waivers, benefits and immunities of a tax nature released by the Federal Revenue, which deal specifically with these taxes.

Opening up the numbers and identifying beneficiaries is a demand from Minister Fernando Haddad (Finance), who advocated exposing the “black box” of tax benefits, referring to “almost R$ 600 billion that the Union loses on behalf of half a dozen who lobby Congress and the judiciary, illegitimate.”

The tax reform under discussion in Congress foresees the end of PIS/Cofins and IPI.

A Sheet listed 30 companies with the greatest benefits in the sum of the two lists and which account for 52% of a total of R$ 165 billion in resignations. There are 24,000 benefits listed, and a company or institution can be included in more than one.

In the private sector, companies from the aviation sector stand out —such as TAM, Gol, Azul, GE and Embraer—, from the oil and gas area, vehicle assemblers, manufacturers of agricultural and industrial inputs for agribusiness and electronics companies that are in the Manaus Free Trade Zone.

There are also public administration bodies in various spheres of government, with emphasis on the Ministry of Health, Oswaldo Cruz Foundation and Butantan Foundation, with exemptions in the health area.

Even the Ministry of Finance is on the list, with a modest benefit of R$ 6.3 million from PIS/Cofins-Importation that year. At the time, the folder had been incorporated into the Ministry of Economy.

Since May, the Revenue has released five lists of benefits. One of them is the list of those declared by companies with values ​​that add up to R$ 50 billion for IRPJ/CSLL (taxes on corporate profits).

Lists of companies immune or exempt from the same taxes were also published —with around 260,000 CNPJs of non-profit, religious and closed private pension entities— and around 23,000 companies registered in 14 Special Taxation Regimes. In these cases, the waiver amounts were not presented individually.

Together, the data disclosed in the three lists that contain numbers add up to R$ 215 billion. This represents about 70% of the estimated tax expenditure for 2021.

The Federal Revenue claims that disclosure meets the demands of society and external control bodies, providing greater transparency to the National Tax System.

“In the specific case of tax benefits, transparency allows society to identify taxpayers who receive differentiated tax treatment, providing an environment of greater trust between taxpayers and tax administration.”

Technically called tax expenditures, these exemptions represent an estimated loss of BRL 456 billion for the Union this year and should reach BRL 486 billion next year.

The commerce and services, health and agriculture sectors account for more than 50% of federal tax expenditure, as shown in the tax expenditure map prepared by the Sheet based on Revenue data.