In an opinion sent to the Federal Supreme Court (STF), the Attorney General’s Office of the National Treasury (PGFN) warned that authorizing the so-called workers’ pejotization may have “harmful consequences” on tax collection and social security cost.
Pejotization occurs when a company hires a service provider as a legal entity to mask a labor relationship. With this, the worker and the contractor prevent the payment of labor charges.
“Such a device would annihilate the duty that binds liberal professionals qualified to pay income tax,” said PGFN. “And the social security cash would be embarrassed, moving away from the incidence of the employer social contribution,” added the agency, one of the arms of the Attorney General of the Union (AGU).
Controversy
The phenomenon of pejotization again gained prominence in the news with the decision of Minister Gilmar Mendes, who, on Monday (14), decided to suspend the progress of all cases on the subject, in all courts of the country. The controversy, however, is not new to jurists and economists.
A study published last year by Professor Nelson Marconi, from the Getúlio Vargas Foundation (FGV), for example, estimates that pejotization had an impact of R $ 89 billion on the 2017 fiscal revenue, when the outsourcing of the companies of companies was approved by the end of 2023.
The economist estimated that this impact can exceed R $ 380 billion if the pejotization advances and reaches half of workers with a formal contract.
“Thus, we emphasize that the loss of revenue resulting from pejotization causes relevant impact on public accounts. It is an important aspect to consider when the effects of the wide flexibility intended for the labor market in the direction of enabling situations of violation of labor legislation are analyzed,” Marconi said in the study.
Fiscal motivation
In the opinion sent to the Supreme on the subject, the Attorney General of the National Treasury warned that pejotization affects, above all, more qualified workers, which enhances the fiscal and social security impact of this type of contractual fraud.
This is because such professionals may fail to pay the income tax and their contractors do not need to make the usual social security payments.
“Such a device would annihilate the duty that links liberal professionals qualified to pay income tax-the taxation of such unipessial companies tends to occur, in an extraordinarily favored manner, within the National Simples, while the dividends and profits distributed to the controller-and the social security cashier, departing from the incidence of the patron social contribution,” explained the attorney, ”explained the attorney of the farm” Carlos de Araújo Moreira, who signs the demonstration of PGFN.
The opinion of the agency was sent to the Federal Supreme Court (photo) in April 2023, in a case in which an worker sought, in the Supreme Court, to reverse a decision that denied his employment relationship with a telecommunications company.
“To avoid such harmful consequences, the Union understands that free initiative, in labor law, must be compatible with the strict respect and compliance with the provisions of Articles 3, 9 and 442, all of the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT), preserving the principle of real truth in labor justice,” said PGFN.
Understand
The controversy about pejotization is the subject of supreme clashes at least since 2018, when the plenary decided to authorize companies to hire outsourced to their core activities, not just for support areas such as cleaning, accounting or surveillance.
With this decision, different companies started to open hundreds of lawsuits in the Supreme, claiming that the formal labor links claimed by alleged employees are improper, as the services were provided under regular outsourcing contracts.
Since then, thousands of decisions have been delivered by different STF ministers to overthrow formal work bonds that had been recognized by the Labor Court.
In Monday’s order, Gilmar Mendes complained about the “repeated non-compliance” of the decision in which the Supreme Court authorized outsourcing.
