Project that can reduce electricity bill by 5% goes to sanction

The Chamber of Deputies approved this Tuesday (7) a project that provides for the return to consumers of tax credits collected from more electricity distributors. According to estimates, the measure could reduce the electricity bill by 5% this year.

The text was approved by 303 votes in favor and none against. The rapporteur, Joice Hasselmann (PSDB-SP), made no changes in relation to the Senate proposal. Therefore, the project goes on for sanction by President Jair Bolsonaro.

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 project, authored by Senator Fabio Garcia (União Brasil-MT), is part of the offensive by the government and the National Congress to reduce the impact of readjustments in the electricity bill and fuel prices, four months before the elections.

In the Senate, the rapporteur, Eduardo Braga (MDB-AM), argued that the project sought 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.

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

The text obliges Aneel (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 agency was already discussing the destination for these resources, 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 value.

“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 larger collection by the tax base of ICMS on PIS and Cofins and on PIS/Pasep”, affirmed the senator when reading his report.

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

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

For deputy Carlos Zarattini (PT-SP), the project touches on some important details of taxation, but that are not the only problems with the electricity bill.

“There are other issues in the electricity bill that also need to be resolved. The CDE [Conta de Desenvolvimento Energético] that currently subsidizes coal, a series of resources, expenses that are incongruous, it is necessary to examine how the readjustment of the electricity bill is carried out. What you can’t do is want to solve how the government wants to solve it by making a PEC to reduce taxes without changing the content of light “, he said.

Deputy Bira do Pindaré (PSB-MA) said that the project is beneficial for the Brazilian population. “There was an undue taxation on the energy bill, nothing more appropriate than making the return of what was improperly charged to the consumer, to the population”, he said.