By Bernardo Caram
BRASILIA (Reuters) -The Brazilian government secured 10.2 billion reais ($1.8 billion) in revenue from the first round of tax debt renegotiations with major companies this year, the Treasury’s attorney general and the Federal Revenue Service said.
As part of the initiative, which is included in a broader effort to reduce Brazil’s fiscal deficit to zero by 2025, the government is finalizing technical details to launch another three public notices to renegotiate tax debts, Treasury Attorney General Anelize Almeida told Reuters.
The first-round agreements include an immediate collection of 7.6 billion reais and future payments of 2.6 billion reais.
These kinds of tax debt transactions were originally created to grant discounts on debt renegotiation for companies in serious financial situations. They were made more flexible by a 2024 regulation that allowed the government to seek agreement with large companies to avoid costly and potentially unsuccessful court actions.
“We’re moving to a new focus of the transaction, which is the legal criteria and the litigation involved, how much it costs to maintain the litigation,” Almeida said. “The economic cost of this litigation is very significant for the government and for the company.”
The first round primarily involved large banks. Companies agreed to drop judicial and administrative challenges, concluding 188 lawsuits.
(Reporting by Bernardo Caram; Editing by Manuela Andreoni and Lincoln Feast.)
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