Tebet goes into articulation for tax reform and says that the vote will take six months

The Minister of Planning, Simone Tebet, said this Thursday (2) after a meeting with the mayor, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), that the discussion of the tax reform will last for at least six months. The proposal is among the main priorities of the economic agenda of the Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT) government.

According to her, there is no way to conclude the discussion before that deadline – that is, until the beginning of August. “The tax reform is a process that starts now, but we are, more or less, defining something in around six months. You can’t talk about a tax reform in less [tempo] than that,” he said.

She stressed that it is necessary to “allow time” and that the government still does not know the new legislature. “We have to give them their time. The important thing is that the tax reform moves forward,” she said.

“And she will walk because of the goodwill of Congress, President Lira, President Pacheco. It is a determination by President Lula so that the economic team can advance and make itself available to Congress to advance on this agenda”, he said.

Minister Fernando Haddad (Finance) has been stating that the tax reform would be able to be voted on in the first half of the year and that he believed approval by April in the Chamber of Deputies was possible. Lira also mentioned in recent days that the government’s intention is to deliberate by April.

The minister’s visit to Lira marks her entry into the articulation for reform, strengthening the government’s quest for approval of the text. “Haddad had already made this interlocution, now the Minister of Planning needed to do it too”, said Tebet.

According to her, the vote on the reform should start with the Chamber and the idea is that this text be aligned jointly between the two Houses. “When the project comes out, the reform of the Chamber [deve ser] as close as possible to a definitive text that the Senate has the identity and comfort to vote”, he said.

Tebet said that he also presented Lira with the concern of states with the loss of revenue with ICMS (Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services).

Tebet and Lira met the day after the deputy was re-elected mayor for another two years with a record vote. Senate President Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG) was also re-elected.

When questioned whether the result would give the government greater security for voting on its agendas, Tebet said that the tax reform has nothing to do with the election of the Senate, because “its need is unanimity in the Senate, it always has been”.

“It is an urgent need, there is unanimity [sobre a] her need. We have two presidents, of the Chamber and of the Senate, who are going to make efforts in relation to it. And we have a President of the Republic saying that we need to approve the tax reform,” he said.

“All the elements are positively in favor of the fastest possible processing of the tax reform. The content and how it will come is another story that begins to be written from now on through the Chamber of Deputies.”

After the election result, on Wednesday night (1st), Lira stated that the Lula government’s intention is to give priority to opening the discussion on the reform and voting on the issue within three months. According to Lira, the deadline for the tax reform was set to give parliamentarians time to reopen discussions on the subject, in conversations with public managers and businessmen.

“The intention of the Minister of Economy is that we — in a month, two, two and a half — [consiga] revisit the subjects, discuss the themes, bring the new parliamentarians closer to the subject, revisit municipalities, states, public administration and businessmen, so that we have, with a consolidated base of support, this vote in two and a half or three months”, he told GloboNews.

Tebet stated that the portfolio will now turn to the elaboration of the PLDO (Budgetary Guidelines Law Project), a kind of preview of the Budget and that brings the goals of result of the public accounts. The proposal needs to be sent by the government to Congress by April 15.

A complicating factor for the task this year is that the piece must be delivered during the discussions on the fiscal rule that will replace the spending ceiling, which creates uncertainty about how the document will be prepared.

“We have a deadline for the LDO, which will go along with the new fiscal anchor. April is the deadline that we have to deliver [o projeto da LDO]. So, as the most important piece now in the case of Planning is the LDO. But we are not dealing with that”, he said. “The LDO already needs to have, at least, guidelines that will come to be incorporated into the new anchor, new fiscal framework”, he added.