States suggest reduction of 23 cents for the fixed rate of ICMS on gasoline
The reduction of 23 cents was announced on Friday (31) by the National Committee of Finance Secretaries (Comsefaz). In addition, the validity of the new fixed ICMS per liter of gasoline was anticipated by 30 days, starting to be valid from June 1st.
According to the president of Comsefaz and secretary of taxation of Rio Grande do Norte, Carlos Eduardo Xavier, the cut in the rate was made technically after an effort by the 27 federal entities, since fuels are on the list of essential goods and services, such as defined by complementary law 194/2022, approved last year. “We made a calculation based on an average that we have today of modal rates in the country and we arrived at this value that gives comfort to the 27 federated units. And it is a value that we understand we will achieve, because (cut) today we have 27 different rates in the country, we needed to arrive at a value that would give comfort to the 27 federated units so that they do not have more losses in their collections in the context in which we have been having losses since last year”, said the secretary.
These changes in the form of fuel taxation represent a bureaucratic challenge. Thus, the states decided to create a two-month contingency period to operationalize the transition. “We have to be careful at this moment, and the way was to extend the diesel by one month, two months from now the beginning of the ad rem of gasoline, and for each of these moments, two months of a period that we call a contingency , where we are going to focus only on billing so that we can guarantee supply without any questions for the country”, said the Deputy Secretary of Finance of Minas Gerais, Luiz Claudio Gomes.
collection loss
With the change defined last year that made fuel essential goods, limiting the ICMS rate to up to 18%, the states had a loss of R$ 26.9 billion, according to Comsefaz. However, a rebuild may be close.
At the press conference, Xavier said that negotiations for the replacement of losses agreement should be finalized on Friday (31). According to the secretary, “minor adjustments, writing details” were missing for the petition to be filed with the STF. The expectation was to ratify a pact with the Union.
Fuel price impacts vehicle purchase
A survey carried out by Ipsos shows that the price of fuel is the third main barrier to the purchase of a vehicle by Brazilian families. The data was found in the 2023 version of “Ipsos Drivers”, which was released at the end of February.
On the subject, professor PhD in tax law, André Félix Ricotta de Oliveira, points out that the Brazilian fuel market is atypical and causes this type of fear. “We have a company that is a mixed economy company, it is not necessarily a state-owned company, but the State that controls it, which is the largest shareholder, and we practically have a monopoly on fuel in Brazil, and it does not work for the good of the consumer , always looking for the international price”, he points out.
“How much Petrobras needs to import and how much it has the capacity to produce to supply the domestic market, we are very dependent on that, which increases the price of fuel a lot here in Brazil. Here in Brazil, fuel is very high and the value of motor vehicles is also very high. So it’s not really inviting to have a car. So much so that people say in the popular that having a car is the same as having a child, the expenses are very similar”, he adds.
To carry out the research, 1,200 interviews were carried out, which outlined a ranking of obstacles for Brazilians to have a vehicle. The first reason was the high cost of ownership (33.4%), followed by the interest rate on financing and the price of fuel, reasons given by 32.5% of respondents each.
By Brasil 61
