The Senate Plenary approved, this Tuesday (14), the Bill 2.110/2019, which defines the term “square” for the purposes of taxation of the Tax on Industrialized Products (IPI). The matter had already been discussed in Plenary on August 25th, but its vote was postponed. Initiated by Congressman William Woo (PV-SP) and reported by Senator Antonio Anastasia (PSD-MG), the project now goes to the Presidency of the Republic for approval.
According to the text, “place” is the municipality where the sending establishment is located, in the case of shipments of goods to another establishment of the same company or third parties, or even an establishment that operates exclusively in retail sales. The definition is important because it makes it clear in the law that the prices charged in that city are what should be taken into account when setting the minimum taxable amount of IPI.
The IPI Law (Law 7,798, of 1989) determines that the taxable value cannot be lower than the current price in the wholesale market of the company's “place”. The purpose of the rule is to prevent price manipulation between these establishments to reduce the value of the transaction of products leaving the industrial establishment for the establishment that resells these goods, to the detriment of the collection of IPI.
In his report, Anastasia also points out that government agencies have defined a new interpretation of the term. According to this interpretation, “plaza” would be the same as “country”. For the senator, Congress is being forced to approve a bill to “reiterate the obvious”. Anastasia stated that this small issue demonstrates “the climate of legal uncertainty” in Brazil, which leads to “tax instability”.
According to the rapporteur, “the Special Secretariat of the Federal Revenue of Brazil (RFB) cannot extrapolate this geographic limit to measure prices in different regions. This conduct clashes with the legal command of art. 15, item I, of the Law 4,502 of 1964, and generates litigation, as can be seen from the precedents handed down by the Administrative Council of Tax Appeals (CARF) on the matter”.
Security
For Antonio Anastasia, the approval of the project will give more legal certainty to the issue. The matter had already been voted in the Economic Affairs Committee (CAE), at the end of 2019, under the reporting of Senator Rodrigo Pacheco (DEM-MG), currently President of the Senate.
Anastasia took advantage of the CAE text, accepting the editorial amendments presented by senators Rogério Carvalho (PT-SE) and Paulo Rocha (PT-PA). They suggested amendments along the same lines – changing the word city to municipality – to avoid “ambiguous interpretation”. According to the rapporteur, the term “municipality” is, in fact, technically more correct and more commonly used for legal definitions, as is the case in legislative texts.
Source: Senate Agency Link: https://www12.senado.leg.br/noticias/materias/2021/09/14/senado-define-2018praca2019-para-cobranca-do-ipi