Light goes to court to try to postpone reduction in the electricity bill

Light, energy distributor in the capital of Rio de Janeiro, tries in court to postpone the date of the extraordinary review of its electricity tariffs with the use of tax credits. The topic will be discussed this Tuesday (12) at the board meeting of Aneel (National Electric Energy Agency).

On Friday (8), Light tried to obtain an injunction (provisional and early decision), via a writ of mandamus, to avoid the extraordinary tariff review on that date, but the request was denied.

According to Sheet found, the company seeks a new judicial alternative, in addition to defending its argument during the meeting.

This extraordinary reduction is provided for in Law 14,385. Sanctioned on June 28, the new legislation confirmed the application of a decision by the Federal Supreme Court (STF), which ruled that the collection of ICMS on PIS/Cofins on the electricity bill was unconstitutional and determined the return to those who paid the tax unduly.

The law guarantees the use of these Pis and Cofins credits to reduce the price of energy for residential consumers.

This Tuesday, the agency evaluates the extraordinary tariff readjustment of 14 distributors that had already had the increase this year, before the law was passed. Light is one of them.

The readjustments of Celpe (PE), Coelba (BA), Cosern (RN), CPFL Paulista, CPFL Santa Cruz, Energisa Borborema (PB), Energisa Mato Grosso do Sul, Energisa Mato Grosso, Enel Ceará, Equatorial Alagoas will also be evaluated. , Companhia Sul Sergipana de Eletricidade, Energisa Sergipe and Enel Distribuição Rio.

The use of the tax credit can have a strong effect on reducing the energy bill. See the case of Enel in São Paulo. The return reduced the readjustment by 8.70 percentage points, and the average increase at the end was 12.04%

Light argues that Aneel did not carry out a public consultation to make the exceptional readjustment, and that this would be a necessary prerequisite in these cases.

“Light is not opposed to the tariff review, but rather to carrying it out without the prior and necessary public consultation, required by law and by the tariff review regulations themselves,” the company said in a note sent to Folha.

The text also highlights that “in the case of Light, consultation is even more necessary, since, as Aneel intends to capture credits not yet compensated by the distributors, which creates a risk of economic-financial imbalance that may end up compromising the quality of the public distribution service provided by the company.”

Light also highlights that it has already transferred more than R$1.4 billion in PIS/Cofins credits to customers in the last two tariff adjustments, thus avoiding an even greater increase in the energy bill. “The company awaits the regulation of the process by Aneel and states that it is necessary to guarantee legal certainty for the realization of these returns”, says the note.

The reading so far, however, is that the law requires Aneel to make the return, without further consultations with the market.

After the STF ruled that the collection was unconstitutional, the final destination of these tax credits generated a long discussion at the agency, which lasted more than a year.

The distributors defended that they would be entitled to all credits, as they were the ones who filed the lawsuit against the charge. Of the 53 distributors in operation, 49 challenged the system in court. One of the most combative in defending this argument was Light.

The agency vetoed this alternative, so companies began to ask for a good compensation for questioning a taxation considered inappropriate, plus an additional one to cover procedural costs.

The law put an end to the debate, and determined the return to consumers through minor readjustments in energy bills.

Data released by the Chamber and Senate show that, of the R$ 60.3 billion in credits to be returned by the Union to distributors, R$ 47.6 billion have not yet been returned to consumers. The rest have entered tariff revisions since 2020, which would have resulted in an average reduction of 5% by then.

The use of tax credits is part of a movement that seeks to reduce the cost of the electricity bill. In the last two years, because of the pandemic, different measures held back the increases, which began to be applied in 2022.

The perspective is for high readjustments, of at least 12% in the country’s average. That’s almost 4 percentage points above last year’s readjustment, which was 8%, according to a calculation by TR Soluções — a technology company specializing in energy tariffs. The survey does not consider taxes (which vary from state to state) or the tariff flag.