Federal court debt bill in 2023 exceeds BRL 100 billion

The bill for precatories — amounts due after a final judgment in court — for the Union in 2023 is already over BRL 100 billion, according to internal government estimates obtained by the Federal Government. Sheet.

Not all of this amount will need to be paid off next year, as a change made to the Constitution at the end of last year authorizes the government to defer part of the payments to subsequent years, which became known as the precatories sub-ceiling.

But the calculation has been highlighted behind the scenes by technicians as a sign that the “meteor”, as classified by Minister Paulo Guedes (Economy), continues to hover over public accounts. The figure is greater than the entire budget of the social program Auxílio Brasil for this year, which totals R$ 89 billion.

The value considers new judicial debts forwarded by the courts until April 2, the deadline for the issuance of precatories of 2023, and the debts that will be inherited from this year after the creation of the subceiling for this type of expense.

Preliminary government figures for 2023 show that BRL 54.1 billion in new precatories were issued by the Judiciary (the largest amount, BRL 52.5 billion, comes from the Federal Court).

Another R$ 33.4 billion are amounts remaining from previous years – which already includes debts that entered the queue due to the new rule.

The calculation also includes an estimate for RPVs (small value requests), which include actions worth up to 60 minimum wages and have priority in the payment queue.

This year, RPVs totaled almost R$ 20 billion. From this number, the technicians predict that the value for 2023 should be R$ 21.2 billion, considering the inflation in the period.

Thus, the estimate is already at R$ 108.7 billion and may increase with the incorporation of corrections and other liabilities.

The evaluation within the Ministry of Economy is that the scenario shows that this type of expenditure remains at a high level, although there is still no precise diagnosis on what the trend will be for the coming periods.

Last year, the economic team decided to act after detecting a 62.9% increase in the value of precatories, which reached R$ 89.1 billion and occupied almost all the space available in the Budget, compromising investment plans and the intentions of the President Jair Bolsonaro (PL) to expand the government’s social program, Auxílio Brasil.

The situation ended up triggering the sending of the PEC (proposed amendment to the Constitution) of the Precatórios, which raised the spending ceiling and even established a mechanism until 2026 that allowed the postponement of the payment of judicial debts, opening a space of almost R$ 115 billion for expenses in 2022, election year.

Under this rule, the government estimates that the payment of precatories within the spending ceiling will be R$ 50.8 billion next year.

The measure, however, is considered a default by experts, who warned of the risk of a snowball of precatories due to the postponement of a considerable part of the payments.

“One of the risks raised in the processing of the PEC of the precatories is coming to fruition”, says economist Daniel Couri, interim executive director of the IFI (Independent Fiscal Institution, an agency of the Federal Senate that monitors public accounts).

“If the current flow of convictions is maintained, the Union’s liabilities will be increasing. The problem of 2027 is already contracted. What will be done when the exception created by the PEC ends?”, he asks.

The economy’s bet to prevent the billion-dollar snowball of unpaid debts is the effecting of direct agreements with creditors or the use of these values ​​as a bargaining chip in privatization auctions and purchase of Union properties.

In these cases, debts can be settled outside the spending ceiling, without taking up space in the limit for this type of expense.

Sought, the Federal Budget Secretariat reported that “it was not informed of the occurrence of direct agreements” or of procedures “involving the precatories that will not be paid this year due to the established limit”.

An agreement signed by the Union with the municipality of São Paulo to end the legal dispute involving Campo de Marte, in the amount of R$ 23.9 billion, was the first in the modality, but the action was still ongoing. Therefore, the precatory had not yet been issued.

On another front, technicians in the economic area warn that the regulation of the correction of precatories may worsen the future situation.

A resolution by the CNJ (National Council of Justice), published in March this year, says that debts awaiting payment must have their consolidated value corrected by the basic interest rate, the Selic, currently at 12.75% per year.

The exchange of the correction of the precatories to the Selic was proposed by the government itself in the PEC dos Precatórios.

But, according to technicians, the wording of the resolution will result in the application of the tax on precatories and the interest previously incorporated, increasing the impact on the accounts – mainly of states and municipalities, which have accumulated judicial liabilities for a longer time. Before, the amounts were monetarily restated and simple interest, that is, non-cumulative, was levied on them.

Counselor Marcio Freitas, rapporteur of the resolution at the CNJ and president of Fonaprec (National Committee of Precatórios of the National Forum of Precatórios), informed in a note that the constitutional amendment itself elected the Selic as a factor for correcting the precatories.

“The CNJ is solely responsible for regulating the constitutional amendment made by the constituent legislator. The decisions about the economy and the financial impact of the amendment were made by the Legislature, when the amendment was discussed”, he said.

Freitas also stated that the incidence of the Selic on the consolidated value of debts is not an innovation, since this was already foreseen for tax debts.

Lawyer Eduardo Gouvêa, president of the Special Commission for Precatórios in the Federal Council of the OAB (Ordem dos Advogados do Brasil), says that the government is “shuddering” because it did not count on such a significant increase in the Selic. When the PEC for precatories was sent, in August 2021, the interest rate was 4.25% per year.

“What the government is kicking is that it didn’t count on the Selic rate going up so much. The story is always like this, the government always tries to change the rate to the lowest possible. It’s the government not wanting to pay what it owes correctly “, criticizes Gouvea.

Through the advice of the Ministry of Economy, the PGFN (Prosecutor General of the National Treasury) said that it would not manifest itself and directed the questions to the AGU (Advocacy General of the Union), which did not comment.