Revenue servants threaten to go to court to abandon leadership positions

To circumvent possible political pressure against the stampede at the Internal Revenue Service, the agency’s servants are even considering going to court and asking for the exoneration of leadership positions that have been barred for lack of approval from superiors.

The joint delivery of commissioned positions started at the end of December, but still needs to be approved by high-ranking members of the Revenue and published in the DOU (Official Federal Gazette).

This is expected to start taking effect next week. There are already more than 1,200 auditors and 300 analysts who have handed over the positions.

Even the stampede at ​Carf (Administrative Council of Tax Resources), linked to the Ministry of Economy, still needs to be carried out, as it was not authorized by a formal act in the DOU.

A group of 63 councilors from the agency intends to leave the council in January, which could delay the resumption of judgments on tax disputes between the Union and taxpayers.

Handing over management positions can hinder the provision of public services, such as solving problems with tax returns and even the entry and exit of products in international trade.

Throughout this week and until the beginning of next week, meetings are planned in regional unions of auditors and analysts of the Revenue.

The meetings are to decide whether to adhere to the general strike of federal civil servants on January 18, in addition to approving the adoption of a standard operation in some sectors.

Since the end of last year, for example, auditors stationed at the customs office at the Port of Santos, on the coast of São Paulo, have been working in standard operation.

The measure means that the analysis, selection and distribution of import declarations are carried out more carefully, which has the potential to delay the flow of foreign trade in the country.

So far, leaders of the IRS union movement have received only occasional reports of the effect of the reduction in the execution of activities. There is information, for example, on the queue of trucks on the border between Brazil and Venezuela.

However, the expectation is that the strike movement will grow until next week, when the impact of union mobilization should become clearer.

The expectation is that in the same period the publication of the exoneration of civil servants who currently occupy leadership positions will begin.

“The agreement is that if one colleague leaves a position, the other will not take over,” said George Alex Lima de Souza, chairman of the board of Sindifisco Nacional (National Union of Revenue Auditors) in Brasília.

According to him, the handing over of positions is a bureaucratic process and often depends on the will of the hierarchically superior bosses.

“If this does not evolve, we will have to take other measures to guarantee the exoneration in the coming weeks, including considering the judicialization”, said Souza.

The strike movement for salary readjustment was triggered after lobbying by federal police officers had an effect and corporations received a promise from President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) that there will be resources for salary increases in 2022.

These categories are part of the president’s electoral base. This year, he will seek re-election in the dispute for the Planalto Palace.

Only the Federal Police, PRF (Federal Highway Police) and Depen (National Penitentiary Department), in addition to community health agents, obtained a promise of readjustment within the federal civil service.

The Budget provides for R$ 1.7 billion for the readjustment, but there is no provision in the text for the use of this amount exclusively for police careers. Therefore, several civil servants unions are mobilizing to obtain part of the resources.

The different treatment for police officers triggered a stampede in the top positions of the Revenue and the Central Bank — a way of pressuring the government to grant salary increases to more categories.

In the case of the IRS, in addition to the readjustment, there is a demand for compliance with a 2016 agreement to regulate bonuses for civil servants. Today, this bonus has a fixed value, reaching R$ 3,000 depending on the career.

The servers want the bonus to be variable and calculated according to the general performance of the agency, thus being able to exceed the current ceiling. The cost of this measure is estimated at around R$500 million per year.

“We have assemblies until the end of the week throughout Brazil, and our orientation is to open a permanent state of mobilization, with standard operation and delivery of positions”, said Geraldo de Oliveira Seixas, President of Sindireceita (National Union of Analysts -Revenue Taxes).

The movement has grown. The union that represents labor tax auditors — Sinait — registers this week the delivery of more than half of the leadership and coordination positions.

Labor auditors demand the regulation of efficiency bonuses, provided for by law about five years ago, and protest against what they understand to be unequal treatment for the category.

In the midst of the movement, representatives of Unacon (a union that represents the servants of the finance and control career of the National Treasury and the Comptroller General of the Union) met with members of the Ministry of Economy this Wednesday (5).

They called for more competitions and an effort by the government to reallocate staff to positions in the Ministry of Economy and CGU. The diagnosis received is that it will be difficult to make tenders in the short term due to budgetary restrictions and the various requests held back in the public administration.

Fábio Pupo collaborated

UNDERSTAND THE MOBILIZATION OF FEDERAL SERVERS

1. What is the reason for dissatisfaction? Employees want salary readjustments not only for federal police officers ​
2. How is the movement for a public service strike going? Fonacate (Permanent National Forum for Typical State Careers) and Fonasefe (Forum of Federal Civil Servants Entities) discuss a stoppage in January and a general strike from February
3. How many servers are represented by these entities? More than 80% of the nearly 600,000 employees of the Executive, according to the top of these organizations
4. Which categories threaten to stop? CGU (General Comptroller of the Union), diplomats, foreign trade analyst, National Treasury, Federal Revenue, labor auditors, among others, such as health workers, Social Security and social assistance
5. What are the next steps? Each union must meet at an assembly and approve the strike in January