Lula’s team will wait for fuel prices at the beginning of the year to decide on tax returns

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The coordinator of the transition cabinet’s technical groups, former minister Aloizio Mercadante, said this Thursday (8) that the future government of president-elect Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) will await the situation of fuel prices and quotation of currencies to hit the hammer on the return of tributes.

The current government of President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) zeroed federal taxes on fuels by the end of this year. PIS and Cofins, which apply to diesel and cooking gas, were reduced to zero. In addition to these, the Cide rate that affects gasoline and ethanol was zeroed.

“We are waiting to see how the scenario evolves,” said Mercadante, referring to the international oil price and the dollar exchange rate.

The former minister’s statement took place during an interview with journalists from the technical group of mines and energy of the transition cabinet. Members of Lula’s team were also asked about the Bolsonaro administration’s proposal to change the pre-salt sharing regime.

Engineer Maurício Tolmasquim, former president of the Energy Research Company and one of the coordinators of the WG, harshly criticized the hypothesis of change. According to him, when the pre-salt layer was discovered, models from all over the world were studied, and the concession model was considered the most appropriate.

“In the case of the pre-salt layer, sharing would be the best way to appropriate the income for the State to apply resources in preparing the future generation, which will no longer have oil,” he said.

“That’s why this proposal that comes from the current government to privatize PPSA (Pré-sal Petróleo SA) calls attention. resources,” he added.

Members of the technical group also stated that Petrobras currently has a “hazy” future. They said that many oil companies around the world have transformed to become energy companies, in view of the end of fossil fuels. The Brazilian company, however, would have been left behind in this process and therefore needs a redirection.

Bolsonaro government leaves bomb legacy of R$ 500 billion in the electricity sector, says Lula’s team

The president-elect’s team for the area of ​​Mines and Energy also released a balance sheet in which it points out that the Jair Bolsonaro (PL) administration left an inheritance of extra costs of around R$ 500 billion in the electricity sector —without specifying, however, the what period of time these expenses refer to.

According to the members of the Mines and Energy technical group, this bill will fall not only on the future Lula government but also on future administrations and, in practice, will be paid by the consumers themselves.

The estimate of the inheritance bomb of the Jair Bolsonaro government was released by Maurício Tolmasquim, former executive secretary of the ministry of the same name and one of the WG coordinators.

“We saw a series of actions taken during this government that will leave a legacy for the next few years, for our government and the ones to come, a bad legacy that will have to be taken by the electricity consumer. We tried to add up all this cost […] this sum reaches R$ 500 billion”, said Tolmasquim. According to him, the amount would be in today’s values.

The former secretary listed some of these actions that contribute to this cost continuing to burden consumers in future governments, although he did not specify the terms of expenditure in any of them.

Among the points mentioned are the so-called Conta Covid – loans made to distributors to compensate for the drop in energy consumption, which leaves around R$ 23 billion. Another R$ 6.5 billion stems from actions to face the water crisis.

The obligations for contracting thermoelectric plants also appear on the list, which left a cost of R$ 39 billion. Another BRL 368 billion result from the privatization of Eletrobras —during the course of the privatization of Eletrobras, congressmen included in the project the obligation to build 8,000 MW (megawatts) of gas thermal plants, which became known as Eletrobras jabutis.

An additional R$75 billion would come from the market reserve obligation for small hydroelectric plants.

Questioned whether it is possible that this cost does not fall entirely on consumers, Tolmasquim said that “there is room for negotiation” and that the government will do “all possible actions to reduce this bill for the consumer”.

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