Alan Rick: Text that reduces time and costs for companies is a “kickoff” for tax reform

“The PLP is the starting point of the tax reform. The project has already been approved by the Chamber of Deputies and by the Economic Affairs Committee of the Senate, where, under our rapporteurship, it received a favorable opinion. We hope that it will be implemented”, said the senator, who charged speed for the matter to be sanctioned by the President of the Republic.

Today, the tax system requires companies not only to collect taxes — considered main obligations — but also to issue invoices and declarations, the so-called accessory tax obligations. In a practical example, this means that a taxpayer providing some type of service must pay the ISS to the municipality, according to the law, but also issue the invoice that generates that obligation.

According to the author of PLP 178/2021, Senator Efraim Filho (União-PB), there are about a thousand formats of invoices for electronic services and nine types of electronic documents. Which in the end, according to the parliamentarian, makes companies waste time and money to fulfill ancillary obligations.

To reverse this scenario, Alan Rick believes that complying with ancillary tax obligations will become simpler and cheaper for companies.

“To open a company, it is necessary to open multiple registers, which consumes more than R$ 22 billion a year. These costs will be reduced with the modernization of systems through the digitization of operations, making life easier for tax authorities and taxpayers. This has the potential to even generate an increase in collection, with the regularization of micro and small enterprises”, he argued.

complex system

A World Bank report points out that Brazil has one of the most complex tax systems in the world. Here, taxpayers spend, on average, between 1,483 and 1,501 hours a year preparing, filing and paying taxes, more than in any other country.

As a solution to reduce excessive bureaucracy, PLP 178/2021 creates the National Committee for Accessory Simplification, the CNSOA, which must be established within 90 days after the approval of the project. The committee will have 24 members, with six representatives from the Union, six from the states, six from the municipalities and six from the productive sector.

The CNSOA will be responsible for implementing the Digital Tax Declaration (DFD), a document that will gather information on federal, state, district and municipal taxes, in order to unify the database of the Treasuries of the three spheres of government. The new legislation also conceives the Brasil Eletrônica Nota Fiscal (NFB-e), which will be valid for the sale of products and the provision of services throughout the country.

Regarding tax records, the proposal establishes sharing through the Unified Cadastral Registry (RCU). Once the RCU has been created, the tax authorities will not be able to demand any other number to identify a company in the databases other than the National Register of Legal Entities (CNPJ).

The expectation is that PLP 178/2021 will bring greater integration of data between federated entities and allow better calculation of taxes and provision of pre-filled declarations. Practice similar to what currently occurs with the Individual Income Tax.

“Mini tax reform” promises to reduce bureaucracy for companies