The day after the “Poço de Lobato” operation, which targeted tax evasion of R$ 26 billion by the Refit Group, in the fuel sector, the Secretary of the Federal Revenue, Robinson Barreirinhas, said that the project being processed in Congress against persistent debtors can combat this type of crime.
“For us to improve treatment for good taxpayers, we need to separate the wheat from the chaff,” said the secretary.
In the case of the group that was the target of the IRS investigation, the crime involved a scheme to evade taxes, evade currency and hide assets.
This Friday (28), he gave an interview to Voice of Brazilproduced by Brazilian Communications Company (EBC).
The Revenue Secretary highlighted that they are persistent debtors are people who use the business activity or structure to avoid paying taxes and thus have a competitive advantage.
“In the middle of this whole scheme, there is one of the largest persistent debtors in Brazil, an economic group whose main business is not paying taxes”, explained Robinson Barreirinhas.
“Small minority”
They would be on the list of persistent debtors approximately one thousand taxpayers, among more than 20 million Brazilian companies.
“It’s a small minority, but it causes enormous damage in certain sectors,” he says.
Barreirinhas clarifies that a businessman may eventually default when having difficulty and being unable to pay taxes.
“It can happen to anyone. He is not a persistent debtor. We are talking about that businessman who opens a company with the intention of not paying taxes.”
Therefore, the government advocates tougher legislation against this type of crime.
“The debt must be greater than R$15 million and this amount must be greater than the company’s equity”, he considered. Another intention of the project, according to the secretary, would be for competition between companies to become healthier. “We are talking about persistent debtors who owe more than R$200 billion.”
The government has no expectation of receiving the money evaded from public coffers due to the fact that they are open companies without any assets. “What we want is to take them out of the market and open up space for good businesspeople to operate”, he highlighted.
