Bárbara de Alcântara Mattos
Lawyer at Marcos Martins Advogados
The Federal Revenue Service has banned interest on interest in tax offsetting. In this context, companies that use tax credits will notice changes in relation to their remaining balance, corrected due to the understanding brought about by Consultation Solution No. 24/2022.
The calculation method adopted by the Federal Revenue Service has a significant impact, especially on legal entities that qualify for tax credits arising from court decisions and gradually deduct taxes. The issue is gaining relevance at the moment, when several companies are taking advantage of the credits from the thesis of excluding ICMS from the PIS and COFINS calculation base.
Previously, in addition to correcting the tax credit balance by the Selic rate, many companies included a second correction at the time of each offset, which was applied to the total remaining balance.
For example, if a given credit amounted to R$250,000, of which R$150,000 was principal and R$100,000 interest, and R$30,000 was used in the month for offsetting, many taxpayers would correct the total remaining balance (R$220,000) by the SELIC rate for use in the coming months.
Now, however, the tax office has made it official that Selic will be levied only on the principal amount, i.e. the unduly paid tax credit claimed in the lawsuit, without interest.
Following this change, companies must make a proportional calculation for each offset, in order to comply with this understanding and check how much of the principal and interest has been consumed, so that the adjustment is only levied on the principal in the following months.
It is important that this calculation is done correctly so that there is no risk of compensation not being approved and penalties being applied. Non-approval, in addition to re-establishing collection of the offset debts with interest and a 20% fine, is also subject to an isolated penalty of 50%, totaling 70% in fines.
Marcos Martins Advogadosmakes its tax team available to answer any questions on this issue.
