Complementary Law 199/2023, which provides for the simplification of accessory tax obligations, was published in the Official Gazette of the Union this Wednesday (2/3), and should make life easier for taxpayers and improve the business environment in the country.
This is the opinion of tax specialists interviewed by the electronic magazine Consultor Jurídico.
Lawyer Liz Marília Vecci, founding partner of Terra e Vecci Advogados, highlights the time savings that the new rules will provide.
The specialist explains that tax obligations arising from indirect taxes require between 867 hours in 12 locations and 885 hours in the 14 locations that require taxpayers to submit an additional ICMS collection statement, in addition to the statement submitted through SPED.
“The Doing Business Subnacional Brazil 2021, in the chapter that deals with taxation in Brazil, points out that a Brazilian entrepreneur needs to understand how to comply with up to 97 tax obligations, regulated by national, state and municipal tax rules — an average of 4,377 rules that undergo around 36 changes every day — more than one per hour. And there's more: the time dedicated to complying with the rules regarding federal taxes totals 361 hours for taxes on income and 255 hours for labor charges and social contributions,” he analyzes.
Maria Carolina Sampaio, head of the tax department and partner at GVM Advogados, regrets that some of the most interesting points were vetoed by the presidency, such as the participation of civil society in this committee, the unification of documents and tax declarations, among others. “The practical measures that the law brought, in fact, were almost all vetoed”.
Letícia Michellucci, a tax specialist at Loeser e Hadad Advogados, states that the integration promoted by the new rules will, according to the text of the law, reduce taxpayers' costs and revenues from the demand for compliance with ancillary obligations, such as issuing documents, using data to pre-fill declarations, unifying tax collection guides, unified records, among others.
“Today, federal, state and municipal systems are not fully and formally integrated, and their function is mostly collaborative. The LC also innovates by creating the National Committee for Simplification of Accessory Obligations (CNSOA), an agency linked to the Ministry of Finance, to be composed of six members of the Federal Revenue Service, six representatives of the states and Federal District and six of the municipalities. This agency will be able to establish and improve the process covered by the law and establish national standards to be met,” he summarizes.
In turn, Bruno Minoru Takii, partner in the tax area at Diamantino Advogados Associados, mentions the veto on the unification of tax invoices (services and goods), although the law provides for the unification of electronic tax documents. “Therefore, I believe that this unification concerns the standardization of service tax invoices (ISS), because tax invoices related to goods (ICMS) already have a national standard.”
Article 1, section IV, determines that additional obligations will have pre-filled fields, as is already the case with the DIRPF, with a form being issued based on this information. “Everything indicates that the declaration will already be filled out and the form will be issued automatically. If the taxpayer does not agree, he or she must make the necessary adjustments to rectify the information. Obviously, this procedure will tend to attract inspections,” he assesses.
“The unification of tax records and the full exchange of information between all tax authorities — allowing public bodies to access the tax information of taxpayers who benefit from actions or programs that involve public spending — should be the filter for accepting and disqualifying people from social programs, such as Bolsa Família. A relevant piece of data for this will be the purchases made by the individual with the CPF informed on the receipt,” says Takii.
Link to Complementary Law 199/2023: Full text