Reinforcing Pix inspection will reduce the chance of workers falling through the cracks, said this Monday (13) the special secretary of the Federal Revenue, Robinson Barreirinhas. In an interview with Voice of Brazilhe again denied the wave of fake news on a tax on electronic transfers and reiterated that self-employed workers are not the focus of monitoring.
According to the secretary, modernization in the supervision of financial transactions will allow the Tax Authorities to provide more accurate data in the pre-filled declaration, which will reduce the chance of errors and discrepancies. “Everyone likes the pre-filled declaration. You get there and there’s no work at all. Because the data, for example, balance, bank account and financial investment, are already pre-filled. And why are they already pre-filled? Exactly. Because financial institutions provide information to the Federal Revenue Service”, he stated.
With the inclusion of fintechs (startups of the financial sector), digital banks and virtual wallet companies in providing information, highlighted the secretary, the pre-filled declaration will be more reliable. “Now with the fintechswith payment institutions also lending, the IRS will have more solid, more correct data. And this reduces the chance of the worker, the businessman, falling into the Federal Revenue’s fine mesh,” added Barreirinhas.
For professionals who receive payments through Pix, the secretary reiterated, nothing will change. Especially because these people have been inspected for more than 20 years. “Nothing changes, because the IRS already received information on any type of movement, including Pix, from traditional financial institutions. If the person has never had a problem in the last 20 years, there is no reason for them to have one from now on, so nothing changes for them. It is important that the small business owner, the individual, does not fall for these lies, the fake news”, he reinforced.
Focus
The secretary explained that the new inspection increased the limit for monitoring movements from R$2,000 per month for individuals and R$6,000 for legal entities to R$5,000 per month for individuals and R$15,000 for legal entities. The change, explained Barreirinhas, intends to increase the focus of inspection on suspicions of money laundering or organized crime movements, without affecting workers or small business owners.
“The focus of the Federal Revenue is not, I repeat, the worker, the small company, the small entrepreneur. It is not. The focus of the IRS is on another type of people. It is those who use these new technological tools to move illicit money, often criminal money, money laundering. This is the Federal Revenue’s approach. It is not, I repeat, the worker, the businessman, the listener of The Voice of Brazil”, he declared.
Decades-old supervision
Barreirinhas explained that for more than 20 years, since 2003, the IRS has been monitoring financial movements. The new normative instruction, he highlighted, merely represented the addition of new types of companies that operate payment methods, but are not formally classified as financial institutions, to send information to the Tax Authorities twice a year. Once again, the secretary stated that the Constitution does not allow taxation on financial transactions.
“It is not true that no control was created over Pix. This has existed for a long time here in Brazil. What the Federal Revenue did from 2025 onwards is to make it clear, it has the information that has always been provided by financial institutions, by traditional banks, has to be provided by calls fintechs. These companies without a physical branch, where you often open an account online, fintechs or payment institutions”, he explained.
