In recent days, the Federal Government has adopted several measures to reduce the economic impacts of COVID-19 for Brazil. Among these, the following measures were announced in the tax and social security spheres of interest to companies and other social security taxpayers:
- Suspension of 3 (three) months of the deadline for companies to pay the FGTS of their employees;
- Suspension of 3 (three) months of the deadline for companies to pay the Union installment in Simples Nacional;
- Reduction of 50% (fifty percent) for 3 (three) months of the contributions to the S System;
- Temporary IPI exemption for domestically produced or imported goods listed and that are necessary to combat COVID-19;
- Temporary reduction to zero of the aliquots on the importation of medical-hospital products;
- Simplification of customs clearance of products of medical-hospital use intended to combat COVID-19;
- Non-automatic export licensing for products necessary to combat COVID-19, ensuring national supply as a priority;
- Anticipation to May 2020 of the payment of the 2nd (second) installment of the 13th salary of INSS retirees and pensioners. The 1st (first) installment had already been anticipated to April 2020;
- Transfer of the PIS/PASEP amounts not withdrawn to the FGTS, to allow new withdrawals; and
- Suspension of collection acts by the Attorney General of the National Treasury (PGFN) for the next 90 days.
In addition to these, it is worth mentioning that other measures, aimed at the Financial System, were adopted to favor companies and the economy, keeping the credit system heated.
Such measures allow greater flexibility for financial institutions to carry out their operations and for companies and consumers to take out credit, such as the dismissal of the increase in provisioning, favoring the Banks' cash flow, the reduction of the need of own capital to operate, favoring their leverage, and the reduction of the consigned loan interest rate (to 1.80%) for retirees and pensioners of the INSS and of the credit card (to 2.7%).
The Federal Government is still to announce new measures, which will be timely disclosed also in our channels.
For further information, please contact the Advisory Tax team ([email protected]) of our firm.
