Tax reform: international purchases will have to pay future consumption tax | Economy

Purchases by Brazilians abroad of up to US$50 – who currently do not pay federal taxes, such as import taxes, PIS and Cofins – will normally be taxed by future consumption taxes (CBS and IBS – federal, state and municipal VAT) .

The information was released this Thursday (25) by the extraordinary secretary for tax reform at the Ministry of Finance, Bernard Appy. According to him, the so-called standard rate will be charged – also applicable to the domestic market –, estimated at 26.5%.

“IBS and CBS will be collected at a standard rate. All values, any value. In the new model, any international remittance pays tax. It’s the concept of neutrality. Basically, the states are already talking about raising the rate, not It’s going to look very different from what it is today,” Secretary Appy told reporters.

The decision to normally tax purchases from abroad is in the bill to regulate the tax reform on consumption – which was sent to the National Congress this week.

The Treasury’s schedule predicts that the regulation will be made between 2024 and 2025. With the end of this phase, the transition from current taxes to the Value Added Tax (VAT) model – with non-cumulative charging – may begin in 2026.

Today, the exemption from federal import tax is applied as long as companies adhere to a compliance program, called “Compliant Shipping”. If they don’t join, they pay 60% import tax – the same amount charged for orders over US$50.

• According to data from the Federal Revenue, in 2023, Brazilian consumers spent R$6.42 billionin a total of just over 210 million international orders.
• In 2022, around R$2.57 billion in 178.6 million purchases from abroad. The value is less than half of the 2023 total.
• With the new program, the Federal Revenue reported that there was a “significant increase” of 1,596% in total import declarations for postal shipments (through the Post Office) in 2023.

Although the federal import tax rate is currently zero, the economic team has informed that it will increase taxation in the future. If this happens, taxes on international orders will be even higher.