Senate tax reform may provide for electronic tax collection system

Senator Roberto Rocha (PSDB-MA) proposes in his opinion on PEC (Proposed Amendment to the Constitution) 110, on tax reform, an electronic system for collecting taxes on consumption.

The idea is to allow banking institutions to separate the collection from the tax amount, whenever there is a financial transaction or payment of a slip linked to an invoice for goods or services.

The banks would transfer the amounts related to taxes to the public administration. According to the senator, it is not a tax on transactions, along the lines of the former CPMF (Provisional Contribution on Financial Transactions), because the collection is linked to the issuance of an invoice.

Today, it is the merchants and service providers themselves who need to declare the values ​​of the invoices and pay the taxes, which would open the door to evasion, according to the senator. By linking the information on banknotes and bank transactions, the intention is to reduce the gap.

The tax reform opinion returned to the center of discussions after the president of the CCJ (Constitution and Justice Commission) of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (DEM-AP), included the PEC on the agenda of the next session of the commission, on Wednesday (23).

Alcolumbre says he believes that the session will initially be intended only for reading the report, as he believes that there will be requests for a view to deepen the discussions. The vote, therefore, should be left for the first weeks after Carnival.

Leaving a meeting with the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), this Thursday (18), and with a group of retailers, Rocha said that there is a commitment for the PEC to be voted on in the plenary by the senators on the same day in that is approved by the CCJ.

The vote on the broad tax reform is a bet by Pacheco for the 2022 legislative agenda, after this agenda has generated clashes with the government and also with the Chamber of Deputies, which had a preference for another PEC, authored by the president of the MDB, deputy Baleia Rossi (SP).

The president of the Senate is a pre-candidate for Palácio do Planalto.

Despite this, the rapporteur himself admits difficulties in advancing the matter. “If we’re very lucky, we vote in Congress this year and enact the PEC. Why am I talking about luck? Because in a little while we’ll enter the pre-campaign, if we haven’t already. In the Senate we will vote, because next week we start. What the Chamber is going to do, then I don’t know”, Rocha told sheet.

The most recent version of the opinion provides for the replacement of the main taxes on consumption by a dual VAT (Value Added Tax), segregated into two spheres: one federal and the other state and municipal.

At the federal level, the current PIS/Cofins would be replaced by the CBS (Contribution on Goods and Services), whose bill was sent by the Jair Bolsonaro government (PL) in 2020.

At the regional level, the ICMS (Tax on the Circulation of Goods and Services) and the ISS (Tax on Services) would both be replaced by the IBS (Tax on Goods and Services).

The states and municipalities would have the autonomy to set their own rates, but the legislation would be unified, and the charge would be made only at the destination of each good or service.

The reform also provides for the replacement of the IPI (Tax on Industrialized Products) by a Selective Tax on cigarettes, tobacco, alcoholic beverages, or other products that may be considered harmful to health or the environment, according to regulations.

The PEC rapporteur defends the approval of a “technological tax reform”. On one of the fronts, Rocha includes in the reform the possibility of taxing the consumption of intangible goods, which paves the way for the collection of taxes on goods and services linked to the digital economy, which are currently not taxed.

In another aspect, the text opens the way for the creation of an electronic system for collecting taxes on consumption, to be regulated by means of a complementary law.

“Currently, we can track the product, but also the money,” stated Rocha, for whom the system would reduce tax evasion. He recalls that, with the banking inclusion of millions of Brazilians after the payment of emergency aid, during the Covid-19 pandemic, this migration is even more relevant.

“As of now, we have 70 million Brazilians with a bank account, so that we can create a modern, electronic tax system, where you can greatly increase the tax base for taxpayers, reducing the tax burden,” he said. the senator.

The model used by Rocha as inspiration was conceived by businessman Miguel Abuhab, founder of Neogrid, a technology company.

In March 2020, Abuhab explained that his system would allow recording in a boleto, for example, how much of the amount paid by the consumer or by a company would go to the supplier and how much would be collected into government coffers. The same would apply for transfers or card payments linked to an invoice.

In all cases, when paying for the purchase, the money would be divided between the credit for the shopkeeper and the government share. The entrepreneur calls this model shared billing.

The format would not be like a collection of the extinct CPMF, nor like the tax on transactions defended by the Minister of Economy, Paulo Guedes, which would be levied on any bank transfer. Guedes’s intention with the new tax was to replace the payroll tax.

Government interlocutors heard by the sheet state that there is resistance on the part of Febraban (Brazilian Federation of Banks) to the implementation of this model. Therefore, the chances of adopting the system are considered remote.

Sought, Febraban said that tax reform “must be one of the priorities of the country’s economic agenda” and that the current system is an obstacle to growth. “For this reason, the sector defends the construction of a new tax system that is simple, balanced and transparent”, she said.

“In this sense, whatever the model of collection adopted, it is necessary to ensure that it does not generate an increase in costs and complex systems. Febraban is open to participating and contributing to the debate on this issue”, said the entity.

Abuhab confirmed to sheet that there was a reservation on the part of the federation. “Indeed there was a resistance to change,” he said.

According to him, the current proposal, however, uses technology that some institutions already make available, such as the possibility of separating values ​​in the same bank slip. Card operators, in turn, would have to make adaptations, acknowledges the entrepreneur.