The tax reform will lead to price increases in nearly 600,000 items, including products and services, and will impact supplier companies classified under Simples Nacional. Furthermore, the dual Value Added Tax (VAT) rate – composed of the Contribution on Goods and Services (CBS) and the Goods and Services Tax (IBS) – can reach 30.3%, up from the previously announced 26.5%.
The alert comes from tax lawyer Lucas Ribeiro, founder and CEO of ROIT, a company specialized in artificial intelligence applied to tax, accounting, and financial management. Ribeiro highlights important points that, until then, went unnoticed.
The study presented by Ribeiro is based on a broad database from ROIT itself, specialized in serving companies from various economic activities primarily classified under the Actual Profit regime, with ancillary obligations from the Public Digital Bookkeeping System (Sped), the Federal Revenue Service, and fiscal documents. Information from 837 companies across the country has been compiled, collectively generating R$ 470 billion annually.
The specialist explains that the analysis of the impact of the tax reform should carefully focus on recalculating the purchase prices of goods, services, and other items that are currently not taxed, such as leasing, rental of movable and immovable property, loans taken out, among many others. "Even loyalty program points will be taxed!", states the expert.
The calculation must consider the taxes applicable throughout the entire chain, so that only then can the new taxes be added. From this recomposition, it becomes possible to define the new selling prices to ensure that the margin is not compromised with the new system. This is one of the reasons why a company cannot base itself solely on changes in tax rates and must pay attention to price changes, item by item, from now on.Ribeiro notes that, in many cases, companies are interpreting the tax reform incorrectly, concerned with the rate, when they should be concerned with the tax base, which will be much broader.
In this sense, the survey identifies nearly 600,000 items (584,000, to be exact) that will need to undergo an increase. They are products and services of the most varied types. From the tax authorities' side, to prevent revenue loss, Ribeiro warns that it is impossible, under the given conditions, for the dual VAT rate to actually be only 26.5%, considering the scenario of these analyzed companies.
To understand the impact of the reform, we need to look at the revenue base. And Complementary Bill 68/2024 has 28 pages and more than 20 articles to define the calculation of 'neutrality'. It is complex to design this calculation without risking an extreme increase in revenue between 2027 and 2029.
Therefore, Ribeiro calls the VAT of the tax reform "Ivão," with characteristics that deviate from the concept of value-added tax applied worldwide. "IVA" identifies itself as simple, it claims to be neutral and everything else, but it skips Carnival, it eats feijoada, drinks caipirinha... It is a very different VAT, a very special VAT, a Brazilian VAT, and we must be very careful with it.
IMPACT ON COMPANIES IN THE SIMPLES NACIONAL
Another aspect that deserves attention and has been neglected is the impact of the tax reform on Simples Nacional companies. This is because this segment is characterized as a supplier and client of large companies, included in the Actual Profit regime, whose taxation is altered, among other aspects, by the generation of financial tax credits, that is, the credit will only correspond to the amount actually paid. The fact is that acquiring from Simples companies will not result in the generation of full credits, reducing the competitiveness of these companies.
In this way, large companies can lose R$ 1 billion in credits, as they currently purchase R$ 6.4 billion in goods and services. In order to avoid bearing this loss, there is a risk that companies under the Actual Profit regime will dispense with suppliers from the Simples Nacional, which would be a blow to this segment.
The indicated outcome is for the companies in the Simples regime to migrate to the Regular Regime, with the IBS and CBS calculated as if they were under the Actual Profit regime, which is complex. There are 6 million companies in the Simples Nacional, which are not accustomed to the complexity of the non-cumulative tax regime. Migrating requires systems, processes, culture, knowledge; it requires investments, argues the tax specialist.
