With the return of parliamentarians to Brasília (DF) after the Carnival recess, the working group (GT) responsible for discussing the tax reform will meet this Tuesday afternoon (28th), at the Chamber of Deputies, to receive suggestions from parliamentarians regarding the work plan of the rapporteur, deputy Aguinaldo Ribeiro (PP-PB). The idea is that the script will be publicly presented on Wednesday (1).
“It is necessary to have an agreement, an alignment, for us to build a work plan that can be aligned (between) the parliament, the Chamber and the Senate, but also the federal government, the Ministry of Finance and the government’s own policy Lula (in front of) this calendar”, said the WG coordinator, Deputy Reginaldo Lopes (PT-MG), on Monday (27), the same date on which he met with the Extraordinary Secretary for Tax Reform, Bernard Appy, along with other parliamentarians .
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Discussions on the plan to be followed by the group begin the dispute over the main agenda in the coming months in the National Congress. Elected by the Lula government as the main management measure to be approved in 2023 in the Legislative, the reform proposal that will be voted on by parliamentarians in the future.
The WG will focus on the content of the Constitutional Amendment Proposal (PEC) 45/2019, which is currently being discussed in the Chamber, but will also fish for suggestions coming from other texts. This is the case of PEC 110, which is being discussed in the Senate. Due to the nature of the agenda, the matter is one of the most subject to lobby from different sectors, after all, the dynamics of tax incidence in the country involves municipalities, states and the Union, in addition to mobilizing specialists and organized civil society.
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“There will always be pressure. It’s part of it. What we want is reform for all of Brazil”, said Aguinaldo Ribeiro on Monday (27th), when trying to outwit the attacks of the different groups that operate in the GT’s orbit to dispute ideas and space in the middle of the game. legislative.
Amendment
Among the numerous suggestions that pop up on the agenda, one measure has the support of popular sectors and civil entities in the progressive field: the idea of a solidary tax reform. Defended for years by organizations such as the National Association of Tax Auditors of the Federal Revenue of Brazil (Anfip), the proposal was materialized in Amendment 178, presented in 2019, during the processing of PEC 45. The text is signed by the acronyms PT, PCdoB , PDT, PSB, PSOL and Rede, parties that, at the time, played in the opposition.
The amendment proposes the implementation of a progressive tax system with a more democratic bias in the application of taxes, which goes against the grain of what currently exists in the country. Today Brazil imposes high taxes on consumption and adopts a tax collection schedule that increases inequalities by taking less from those who have more and vice versa.
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“We have a tax pachyderm with a tremendously regressive structure, which mainly affects lower-income workers and the middle class in favor of those who earn much more, who, with regard to taxation on consumption, pay so much while receiving a minimum wage and receiving 50,000 wages because the expense or tax burden on products or services is the same,” comments the president of Anfip, Vilson Antonio Romero.
In order to try to strengthen the choir around the proposal, Anfip has been holding dialogues with secretary Bernard Appy and seeks to establish a bridge also with Reginaldo Lopes, who will receive the entity and other organizations next week. The agenda will bring together the so-called ‘Brasília Pact’, a group that brings together inspections from the three federative levels and monitors socioeconomic indices in the country, acting on public interest agendas.
Romero observes that the legislative scenario has shown challenges for Lula’s administration, even in relation to tax reform, the need for which is pointed out by different political and social sectors. “I believe that the government still has to have a greater articulation with its support base because it needs 308 votes in each voting stage in the Chamber and in the Senate. There are many actors disputing, almost a big dog fight, and I don’t know how there will be harmony to be able to carry it out.”
For the president of Anfip, one of the first challenges will be to outline a more defined horizon for the processing of the proposal to be approved in Congress. “The government has been shaking its head. Simone Tebet said that it could be until the end of the year, the GT speaks in 90 days and then has the procedure within the two houses of Congress, while Fernando Haddad wanted until June. So this scenario is still very hazy. We are a little skeptical of how quickly the government is trying to develop things, but let’s see what comes out of the working group.”
Editing: Vivian Virissimo
