Currently all imports are subject to taxes in Brazil, but this has just changed with the decision of the Regional Panel for the Uniformization of Special Federal Courts of the 4th region (TRU/JEFs). In a trial, it was defined that purchases of up to US$100 are tax-exempt if the delivery was made by private companies.
The decision was issued following a lawsuit filed by a lawyer against the National Treasury filed in 2020 after being taxed on three international purchases made in 2017 online. The amount charged was R$498.76, although all orders were worth less than US$100. In the complaint, the lawyer asked the Treasury to return the amount of taxes paid.
The 2nd Federal Court of Curitiba recognized the buyer’s right in August 2021, but the Union appealed saying that Decree-Law 1,804/1980, which exempts taxes, only applies to orders transported and delivered by the post office, not by private companies.
The appeal was denied by the Federal Regional Court of the 4th Region (TRU) and the case’s rapporteur, judge Andrei Pitten Velloso, reinforced the decision of the Federal Court of Curitiba that tax exemption applies to all international orders up to US$100 in any delivery methodwhether via a private or public company.
The thesis established by TRU says:
The differentiation made by Normative Instruction of the Federal Revenue No. 1,737/2017 and by Ordinance of the Ministry of Finance No. 156/1999 between orders sent by private companies and by the Post Office for the purposes of applying the exemption established in Decree-Law No. 1,804/80 is not found. legal or constitutional support – since both are characterized as postal shipments, so that the Import Tax exemption provided for in Decree-Law 1,804/1980 must be applied to operations carried out under the International Express Remittance regime, involving amounts of up to one hundred US dollars.
