Simone Tebet admits that the government may not close the gap in the accounts in 2024

Minister Simone Tebet, of Planning and Budget, admitted this Wednesday (12) that the government may not be able to meet the goal of zeroing out the deficit in public accounts in 2024, as promised when launching the project for the new fiscal framework, in May.

According to her, “in the worst case scenario”, the fiscal gap will be within an acceptable range of up to 0.25% of the Gross Domestic Product (GDP). In 2023, the value estimated by the Federal Budget Secretariat will be 1.3% of GDP, of R$ 136.2 billion.

“We have conservative projections, we have to work with conservative numbers, but we know that the minister [Fernando] haddad [da Fazenda] he has letters on his vest sleeve. I know of at least three, which would increase revenue without raising taxes, they are exceptional resources for next year, which is the difficult year for the framework”, he said in an interview with GloboNews.

Simone Tebet says that the government has set goals for the coming years, but that it needs to be “realistic” to meet them, and that the Covid-19 pandemic has left a “social deficit” that has boosted spending on assistance programs.

“So, going from negative 1% to 0%, with these cards up our sleeves, which, if implemented, will be possible. In the worst case scenario, we do not close in the core, but we are inside the band, which is 0.25%, which will give less R$ 25 billion, R$ 30 billion ”, he admitted.

The minister also said that she has the definitive approval of the tax reform and the “quality vote” in the Administrative Council of Tax Appeals (Carf) to bring “gain in expectation”. And also with the drop in the basic interest rate, which is currently at 13.75%, in which “each 1% of interest that falls is less resource that we commit to debt service”.

The Central Bank’s Monetary Policy Committee (Copom) is expected to start reducing interest rates as of the next meeting, scheduled for August. The meeting will have the participation of the two new directors appointed by President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) in the hope of influencing the decision of the other members of the collegiate.

The financial market in general expects that the interest rate will start to be reduced, and analysts predict that the Selic will end the year at 12%, according to this week’s Focus Report.