The president of Abras (Brazilian Association of Supermarkets), João Galassi, proposed to the Ministry of Finance the taxation of bets with the IS (Selective Tax) in the regulation of the tax reform to guarantee the expansion of the list of products in the national basic basket with zero tax.
The proposal was presented to the Extraordinary Secretary of Tax Reform, Bernard Appy, after the regulatory project was sent to Congress, on Wednesday (24), with a very limited list of foods and without any type of animal protein, such as meat and fish.
Nicknamed the “sin tax”, the IS was created in the tax reform to curb behavior that is harmful to health and the environment.
The regulation also establishes a list of products that may be taxed by the Selective Tax. These include vehicles, drinks, cigarettes, minerals, alcoholic and sugary drinks.
“I asked Appy: Couldn’t the new bet betting market suffer the incidence of selective tax considering gaming addiction combined with health issues?”, he told Sheet the president of Abras.
“We are talking about absurd revenues raised by the games. It is a public health issue and should be included as a selective tax”, explained Galassi.
According to him, Appy responded that the IBS and CBS (two taxes created by the reform) will already apply to the games and indicated that he would evaluate the suggestion.
“We are talking about absurd revenues, which are being raised by games, related to addiction, which is a public health issue and should be included as a selective tax.”
For the president of Abras, the government presented a minimum national basic food basket, which deviates from what is established in the constitutional text. For him, the list is also inconsistent with the decree of President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva (PT), from March, with guidelines for its composition.
Ordinance from the Ministry of Development and Social Assistance that deals with Lula’s decree defined ten food groups: beans (legumes); cereals; roots and tubers; vegetables and greens; fruits; chestnuts and nuts (oilseeds); Meat and eggs; milk and cheese; sugars, salt, oils and fats; and the coffee, tea, mate and spices group.
“The constitutional text is very clear. The basket must meet the precepts of the Constitution to combat food insecurity, be healthy, nutritious and contain regional products. It also deviates from the decree. This left me astonished”, said Galassi. “They didn’t even respect the guidelines presented by the government itself and signed by Lula,” he added.
For him, the national basic basket of the government project has a discriminatory bias, because it distances the low-income population even further from ideal consumption. He cited a speech by the program director of the Extraordinary Secretariat for Tax Reform, Rodrigo Orair, who in a press conference to explain the project reported that, in proportional terms, the poorest person’s meat consumption is the same as that of the richest person.
What differentiates one from the other is exactly the type of meat consumption. “The problem is that we are not talking about the poorest who only earn R$600 reais. We have 64% of the poor Brazilian population in the country and a middle class that earns up to R$2,500”, he highlighted.
In the interview, Orair defended the list without animal protein and considered that the measure would cause a shock increase in the average reference rate of 26.5%, calculated based on the rules established in the government project. The numbers point to an increase of 0.7 percentage points in the rate for other taxpayers. The average rate would reach 27.2%.
The reform provided for the possibility of reducing the full food tax rate by 60%. Meats were on that list.
“When he says that meat is consumed by both the richest and poorest population in the same proportion, one by one, he should consider that it is an extremely important product to be discarded from the national basic food basket”, countered Galassi.
Abras’ strategy is to negotiate an increase in the list in Congress based on the basic basket of product categories included in the project presented by the parliamentary fronts. “Yes, we will include tapioca, cheese bread, which is the main product of Minas,” he stated. According to him, the expansion of the list will have the support of parties “from PL to PT” in the vote on the Congress project.
