Senate approves return of tax credits to lower energy tariff

The Senate approved this Wednesday (1st) a bill that provides for the return to consumers of tax credits collected from more electricity distributors, in the form of tariff reductions.

Calculations show that around R$ 60 billion could be transferred to the amortization of electricity tariffs, resources that were being disputed by distribution companies, such as Sheet showed.

The bill, authored by Senator Fabio Garcia (União Brasil-MT), was symbolically approved by the senators. Now it goes to the vote by the federal deputies and, if approved again, it goes to the sanction of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL).

The proposal is part of the offensive by the government and the National Congress to reduce the impact of adjustments to the electricity bill and fuel prices, less than five months before the elections.

The vote in the Senate took place after articulation with the Chamber of Deputies — where there is a project with the same content. The proposal did not go through the thematic committees, it was taken directly to the plenary and included at the last minute on the agenda of the session.

The rapporteur of the proposal in the Senate, Eduardo Braga (MDB-AM), says that the bill’s main objective is to eliminate uncertainty about who would be the real beneficiaries of the credits, whether they would be distributors or consumers.

In 2017, the Federal Supreme Court decided to exclude ICMS (Tax on the Circulation of Goods and Services) from the PIS/Pasep and Cofins calculation basis. Particularly in the electricity sector, there was an expectation that energy distributors would have around R$ 50 billion to receive from the Union in the form of tax credits.

Braga explained that updating these values ​​raises the amount to R$ 60 billion. Of this total, R$ 48 billion would already be qualified and subject to compensation.

The text obliges the regulatory agency to return values ​​to consumers this year. In cases where there has already been an adjustment, an extraordinary review of the tariff must be carried out.

The destination of the resources was under discussion at the agency that regulates the electricity sector, Aneel, but the process has been stalled for almost a year, still in the public hearings stage. The biggest impasse is to define the share of energy distributors in this gigantic amount.

Braga argues that it is clear that the beneficiary of the resources is the population, since the distributors “are not paying” the taxes, but “mere collectors”.

“Updated data, according to Aneel, point to an updated value of R$ 60 billion, of these R$ 50 billion. What we have seen is immense legal uncertainty regarding the consumer being the final beneficiary of these credits, that is, that that consumer of electric energy that paid this tax can be the direct beneficiary, by the decision of the Supreme, of the higher collection by the ICMS tax base on PIS and Cofins and on PIS/Pasep”, he said, during reading of his report.

“There is no doubt as to the fact that the consumer must be the final beneficiary of these credits. After all, it was the consumer who paid the contribution to PIS/Pasep and to Confins in an amount greater than what should have been charged. because, according to the tariff rules, these taxes are collected by the distributor, but borne by the consumers, and passed on to the Union. However, if the consumer paid a higher amount, there is no need to talk about not receiving the full tax credits resulting from the aforementioned decision of the Supreme Court”, he added.

The rapporteur’s calculations point out that the tariff reduction could reach 5% this year and about 9% in 2023.

Energy distributors, on the other hand, argue that they sustained the entire legal battle that resulted in the payment of tax credits. Aneel had already refused the request for the totality of the resources to go to these companies, which were now asking for compensation for having questioned the inappropriate taxation.

“We are here tonight doing justice to the country’s electricity consumer, to the citizen, who has unduly paid for more than fifteen, twenty years, a double taxation, the payment of PIS/Cofins on ICMS. We are returning, with justice, these amounts paid in excess to this worker, in a regulated, organized and fast way, without there being room for negotiations between distributors and the National Electric Energy Agency, with clear rules so that this benefit quickly reaches the worker, the citizen, who paid and pays so dearly for its electricity”, said Senator Fabio Garcia.

The minority leader, Jean Paul Prates (PT-RN), stated that in conversations with the rapporteur, he was informed that R$ 11 billion could be used later this year to lower tariffs.

“Senator Eduardo Braga told me here that the impact could be, this year, at least 5% in the electricity tariff, and could reach 9.3% next year, around 11 billion in return this year”, stated Jean Paul.