Panel SA: Entrepreneurs support Haddad’s plan, but with reservations

The package of measures announced this Thursday (12) by the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, was received by the business community with a positive assessment of the proposal to mitigate the deficit, but there are reservations.

Lawrence Pih, one of the first businessmen to support the PT in the 1980s, claims that the government’s intention is good, however, it is necessary to assess to what extent the economic team’s projections can become reality.

“It won’t be easy to increase revenue, as 2023 signals meager economic growth in Brazil and a global recession,” said the investor.

For him, Lula will have to “navigate with extreme skill” to circumvent the left-wing political wing –represented by Aloízio Mercadante (BNDES), Nelson Barbosa and Gleisi Hoffmann–, give autonomy to Haddad and Simone Tebet (Planning) and not distance himself from the market.

“He has to have a progressive speech, but at the same time he has to be restrained in not scaring the engine of growth, which is the private sector. It was easier in the first term because [Antonio] Palocci and, mainly [Henrique] Meirelles, served as a bumper. Today with Haddad and Tebet it is more difficult, there is no banker in the first echelon to absolve the blows, “she says.

Laercio Cosentino, from Totvs, calls for reforms. “Any measure aimed at reducing Brazil’s deficit has the support of those who think about the country in the medium and long term. However, we need to go further. It is necessary to present and implement a plan that includes social, fiscal balance and structural reforms. To govern is to know how to prioritize”, he says.

The Abit (textile industry association) calls for “a tax reform that is simplifying, that reduces litigation and that guarantees the sustainability of the State not by raising taxes, but by inducing the development of our economy”, it says in a note.

One of the pillars of the plan that caused discomfort was the return of the “casting vote” in the Carf (Conselho de Administração de Recursos Fiscais), the administrative court responsible for judging cases of disagreement between taxpayers and the Federal Revenue Service. The device, extinct in 2020, assured the Revenue to maintain the tax collection in cases of a tie in the trial.

According to Haddad, without the casting vote, the damage to the Union exceeds R$ 60 billion per year.

In the group of entrepreneurs from Esfera Brasil, the change is seen as negative, an idea shared by Abrasca (association of public companies), which defined as “mistaken” the attribution of an increase in collection to the return of the vote. The measure, says the entity, may increase the judicial conflict and generate the opposite effect to that expected by Haddad.

“It is not possible to estimate revenue gains from this measure, unless interference in judgments is assumed, which would be an even greater distortion of the body, nor to indicate this change as a solution to the country’s growing fiscal problem”, said the entity.

Joana Cunha with Paulo Ricardo Martins and Diego Felix