The Court recently decided to exempt shipments of up to US$ 100 from import tax. The sentence was handed down by the TRU (Regional Uniformization Panel) of the Special Federal Courts of the 4th Region.
The action was filed, in August 2020, by a lawyer from Curitiba, against the National Treasury. In the process, the author claimed that in a previous action, which had become final and unappealable in October 2016, the Federal Court recognized his right to exemption from Import Tax on imports in amounts up to the limit of one hundred dollars.
According to the lawyer, the exemption is provided for in article 2, item II, of Decree-Law 1,804/80, which provides for simplified taxation of international postal shipments.
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However, according to the plaintiff, in three purchases made electronically in 2017 abroad, all in amounts below one hundred dollars each, the National Treasury charged the total amount of R$498.76 in Import Tax. The author requested that the National Treasury be ordered to refund the amount charged.
The 2nd Federal Court of Curitiba handed down a ruling, in August 2021, recognizing the exemption from tax on purchases made by the lawyer, ordering the Treasury to return the amount, with an increase in monetary adjustment.
The Union appealed to the 1st Appeal Panel of Paraná arguing that “the orders were not transported by the Post Office, therefore they could not be characterized as international postal shipments, as orders transported by private companies, in accordance with the Normative Instruction of the Federal Revenue Service and Ordinance of the Ministry of Finance, would be classified as international express shipments, which would not benefit from the exemption”.
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The board denied the appeal. The Panel followed the understanding that “the differentiation made by the Revenue Normative Instruction and by the Ministry of Finance Ordinance between orders sent by private companies and by the Post Office for the purposes of applying the exemption established in Decree-Law No. 1,804/80 is not supported legal, since both are characterized as postal shipments”.
Request for Uniformization
The Union filed a Request for Uniform Interpretation of Law with the TRU. In the request, it was argued that the position of the Panel from Paraná differed from the understanding of the 5th Appeal Panel of Rio Grande do Sul, which, when judging a similar case, recognized that “under the Express Remittance regime, exemption from import tax on postal shipments does not apply. international payments of up to one hundred dollars provided for in Decree-Law 1,804/80”.
The TRU dismissed the uniformity incident. The case rapporteur, judge Andrei Pitten Velloso, highlighted that “the understanding established in the ruling of the 1st Appeal Panel of Paraná must prevail”.
The judge also added in his vote: “I see no reason to limit the scope of the exemption established in Decree-Law No. 1,804/80 to goods delivered by the Post Office, since it is precisely the illegitimacy of the restrictions imposed by Ministry of Finance Ordinance No. 156 /1999 which supports the jurisprudential understanding that the exemption must be applied to imports of up to one hundred dollars, even if the exporter is a legal entity”.
When concluding in favor of the plaintiff, Velloso highlighted that “the appellant is not right when alleging the impossibility of applying the import tax exemption provided for in Decree-Law 1,804/80, in operations carried out under the International Express Shipping regime. ”.
(With information from the TRF 4th Region)
