Claiming a time lag between the time of sale and the registration of customs declarations, some overseas shopping sites will start charging 20% Import Tax on purchases of up to US$50 abroad on Saturday (27). Officially, the charge starts on August 1.
AliExpress and Shopee have confirmed their intention to charge the fee starting Saturday. Shein will only start charging at midnight on August 1. Amazon has not yet announced a date when it will start charging the fee.
“Given the time required to adjust import declarations, in accordance with the new regulations, all purchase orders made on the AliExpress platform from July 27th will include the new tax rules,” the company said in a statement.
“The rate [de 20%] will be applied from the 27th, since the requests will have the DIR [Declaração de Importação de Remessas] issued from August 1st. We will maintain transparency in our communications with our consumers, the amounts will be calculated and detailed at the end of the purchase”, explained Shopee. The company informed that nine out of ten purchases on the platform are of products sold by Brazilian retailers and that the tax will only affect the 10% of consumers who buy from abroad.
Shein said it will strictly follow the legislation and will only start charging on August 1, even with a gap between the sale and the declaration to the Federal Revenue Service. “The practical situation is that purchases made up to two or three days before this date may be taxed with the new import tax since there is a gap between the time of purchase and the declaration to the Customs”, informed the company.
Calculation
According to customs rules, the 20% Import Tax will be levied on the value of the product, including freight and insurance charges. The 17% Tax on the Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS), a tax collected by the states since July of last year on electronic purchases, will be charged after adding the purchase value and the Import Tax.
Historic
Since August of last year, purchases of up to US$50 on international websites were exempt from Import Tax, as long as the websites were registered in the Remessa Conforme Program, which guarantees accelerated release of the merchandise. The transactions, however, paid 17% of Tax on the Circulation of Goods and Services (ICMS), a tax collected by the states, with the guides being charged by the websites still abroad.
At the end of May, the Chamber of Deputies approved the 20% federal tax as an amendment to the law that created the Mover Program, to encourage the automotive industry. The Senate approved the text in early June.
On the 22nd, the Secretary of the Federal Revenue, Robinson Barreirinhas, said that the Tax Authority is still waiting for the start of the collection for estimate how much the government should collect from taxes on purchases abroad. The projection, Barreirinhas reported, will be included in the September edition of the Bimonthly Revenue and Expenditure Report, a document released every two months that guides the execution of the Budget.
