President Jair Bolsonaro sanctioned this Wednesday (27) Bill 3.188/2021, which maintains resources to guarantee loans to micro and small businesses through the National Support Program for Micro and Small Businesses (Pronampe). The text was definitively approved by the National Congress at the end of April.
The rule that now enters into force postpones until 2025 the return to the National Treasury of unused amounts from a fund related to Pronampe loans. The program was created in May 2020 to help small businesses financially while maintaining jobs during the Covid-19 pandemic. Last year, Pronampe became a permanent public policy of the federal government.
The government estimate is to guarantee at least R$ 50 billion in credit for micro and small companies with the program, through the financial system. The new round of Pronampe will also cover individual micro-entrepreneurs (MEIs), which total around 13 million people. Adding to the more than 5.5 million micro and small companies, the new phase of Pronampe has the potential to serve more than 20 million companies and micro-entrepreneurs, representing 98% of companies in the country.
Changes
The sanctioned proposal makes permanent the use of funds from the Operations Guarantee Fund (FGO) in operations not honored. One of the amendments approved in Congress exempts companies from complying with a clause to maintain the number of employees provided for in hiring until December 31, 2021. This rule will only be reinstated for loans made from 2022 onwards.
The text also ends the deadline, stipulated until the end of 2021, for the government to increase the contribution of resources to the FGO to meet Pronampe, as the program has become permanent. If this increase in the Union’s participation takes place through extraordinary credits, the amounts recovered or not used must be used to amortize the debt. Other amounts used by the FGO to honor unpaid installments should be used to cover new contracted operations.
The new law also established a change in the Credit Stimulus Program (PEC) to expand its access to companies with up to R$300 million in annual gross revenue, considered medium-sized.
The legislation that created the program intended the PEC only for individual micro-entrepreneurs (MEI), micro and small companies, rural producers and cooperatives and fishing and shellfish gatherers’ associations with a maximum revenue of R$ 4.8 million. For the current target audience, the text reserves 70% of the total amount that can be hired.
The program allows banks to rely on presumptive federal tax credits to be used to decrease the amount payable in exchange for loans made at their risk. The contracting of operations, whose term of operation had ended in 2021, will be reopened until December 2022.
Another measure included in the law is the waiver of the requirement to present some types of certificates by those interested in obtaining a loan, such as electoral discharge, proof of payment of the Rural Land Property Tax (ITR) and a Certificate of Regularity of the Guarantee Fund. of Length of Service, for institutions that lend through the PEC.
Veto
By guidance from the legal area, according to Palácio do Planalto, the President of the Republic decided to veto the provisions of the law that dispensed with the presentation of the Debt Clearance Certificate (CND) related to Social Security through the PEC.
In the government’s assessment, the measure violates the Federal Constitution, which prohibits access to credit and tax benefits for legal entities in debt to Social Security.
