24% of importers suffered delays due to the mobilization of the Revenue, says CNI

Brazilian companies are increasingly feeling the impacts of the standard operation of the tax auditors of the Federal Revenue, which began in December last year. Of 163 foreign trade operators, 72% had their production affected in April.

In the case of importers, the delay in delivering goods to customers affected 23.9% of companies last month, compared to 7% in January. With the difficulty in obtaining inputs and raw materials, the number of companies that interrupted production almost tripled in the period, jumping from 7.8% to 21.2%.

The survey was carried out by the CNI (National Confederation of Industry) between March 29 and April 8. The slowness in the clearance of goods is the main problem pointed out by the companies interviewed, who also complain about delays in deliveries to customers.

In the case of exporters, delays were reported by 40.2% of the companies participating in the consultation, an increase of 16.8 percentage points compared to the result of the survey carried out in January by the CNI.

One of these companies is Samtronic, which works with medical-hospital products that are essential for the treatment of Covid-19.

According to Pedro Silveira, director of Administrative and Controlling at Samtronic, customs clearance (clearance of goods at the country’s airports and ports) has taken 20 to 40 days to complete, thus generating a series of consequences.

The first impact mentioned by him is on customers, such as hospitals that are waiting for the products to carry out treatments. “The main countries that we’re having trouble with are Honduras and Paraguay,” he said.

The damage to the company’s image and the financial issue are other problems described by Silveira.

“The second impact is institutional, it is our brand. Nobody will understand that the tax inspector is on strike, they will say that the company does not deliver [a mercadoria]”, he stated.

Faced with the obstacles, Samtronic fears losing contracts, but also not being able to enter the market in the countries. According to a CNI survey, the cancellation of export contracts rose from 1.8% to 7.6% from January to April this year.

Other difficulties recorded in the consultation were delays in cargo inspections, additional costs associated with storage, logistics and movement of goods, greater rigidity in cargo inspections and in the use of verification channels and more.

Isac Falcão, president of Sindifisco Nacional (Brazilian Federal Revenue Auditors Union), says he understands the concern of Brazilian businessmen, but highlights the difficulties of the category.

“With regard to the control of foreign trade, we need security and agility, but when you take resources and people, you cannot have both. Brazil is working without people and without equipment, it has no possibility of control what is coming in with agility”, he said.

In the standard operation, according to the union, the loads are inspected with due rigor, which had not been done normally due to lack of personnel.

“When businessmen in the industrial sector see these lines with concern, we understand, but it would be much worse if we didn’t have customs control in Brazil. national market, it is vulnerable to unfair competition from products coming from abroad”, added Falcão.

Constanza Negri Biasutti, CNI’s Foreign Trade manager, points out that the continuity of the movement of the Internal Revenue Service’s auditors has already resulted in medium and long-term losses for Brazilian companies, aggravating the situation of the Brazilian productive sector, which is already facing structural and competitiveness.

“We are beginning to see a second group of impacts that have to do with the production process itself, this brings us greater concern and greater urgency to be able to find a viable solution to this issue of stoppage”, he said.

The president of Sindifisco Nacional draws attention to the cut of almost 50% in the Federal Revenue budget for 2022, the lack of public tenders to replace the loss of 40% of the workforce that occurred in recent years, in addition to the regulation of Law 13,464/2017, which deals with the institution of performance bonuses (not yet regulated), among other career structuring measures.

Added to the standard operation at the borders, the mobilization also translates into the delivery of leadership positions. Until May 3, Sindifisco had received notice of 1,498 management positions delivered by tax auditors, of which 479 were made official with the publication of the exoneration ordinance.

In addition, around five thousand auditors expressed their commitment not to assume any commissioned position at the Internal Revenue Service until better working conditions are implemented.

According to Falcão, the mobilization should not slow down in the coming weeks. “There is no prospect of the situation of the Revenue normalizing because the government does not signal replacement of the budget, does not signal the realization of public tender and does not signal the regulation of the law”, he said.

Sought, the Federal Revenue said that “it does not manifest itself about strikes or mobilizations”.

WHAT DOES THE FEDERAL REVENUE DO?

The Federal Revenue is responsible for the structure of the federal tax collection system and part of that of the states and municipalities, via participation funds, which supports the social security and state budgets. It is responsible for the regulation, inspection and administrative judgments, when taxpayers question the payment of taxes. The following are under the Federal Revenue Service umbrella for collection purposes:

at airports
35 passenger terminals
41 load terminals

in the ports
38 terminals, organized into 44 river and lake port facilities and 165 maritime port facilities

On the Earth border
27 border posts
10 police stations;

inside the country
66 dry ports
7 customs industrial logistics centers
3 international postal delivery centers
3 express shipping processing hubs.

Must monitor:
16 federal taxes, including taxes, contributions and fees

– IRPF (Individual Income Tax)
– IRPJ (Corporate Income Tax)
– IRRF (Income tax withheld at source)
– CSLL (Social contribution on net income)
– IOF (Tax on Credit, Exchange and Insurance Transactions, or on Securities)
– ITR (Rural Territorial Tax)
– IPI (Tax on industrialized products)
– II (Import tax)
– IE (Export tax)
– Social security contributions of individuals
– Social security contributions of legal entities
– Contribution to PIS/Pasep and Cofins
– Cide-fuels (Contribution for intervention in the economic domain incident on operations carried out with fuels)
– Cide-remittances (Contribution of intervention in the economic domain levied on remittances abroad)
– AFRMM (Additional freight for merchant marine renewal)
– Siscomex usage fee