Government promises to send project to reduce MP payroll

Payroll repayment for 17 sectors of the economy should come out of the provisional measure (MP) issued at the end of last year and be transferred to a bill with constitutional urgency. The agreement was sealed this Tuesday (6) after a meeting of leaders of the allied base in the Senate with the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad.

The remaining points will continue to be processed normally in Congress. However, it has not yet been decided whether the government will need to issue a new MP revoking the current one or whether it will preserve the text edited in December, just removing the section that provides for the gradual re-encumbrance of the payroll from April onwards. Haddad confirmed the information when leaving the Ministry of Finance this evening.

Leader of União Brasil, senator Efraim Filho (PB) stated that the government should revoke the section of MP 1202/2023 by the end of this week and forward the bill. Haddad took the proposal to President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva so that the Planalto Palace could decide the path to follow.

“The final direction is that Minister Haddad will still submit it to the President of the Republic, but we have made a lot of progress towards separating issues relating to tax relief and re-encumbrance from MP 1202/2023. There was, within the leadership, an agreement on the method for forwarding this nature”, said the government leader in Congress, senator Randolfe Rodrigues (no party-AP).

Author of the law approved last year that extended payroll tax relief until 2027 and vetoed by Lula, Efraim said that the publication of an MP, instead of a bill, provoked strong reactions within Congress. According to him, the reaction occurred because parliamentarians considered themselves disrespected. “It was clear at the meeting table that this topic was not being well received in Congress. The bill would be the best path as it presupposes dialogue, debate and votes”, he commented.

Chamber

Lasting two hours, the meeting with the senators took place in the late afternoon. A meeting with party leaders in the Chamber, scheduled for this Tuesday morning, was postponed until after Carnival.

This Tuesday, representatives of 17 parliamentary fronts presented a manifesto demanding that the MP be returned by the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG), or that the president of the Chamber, Arthur Lira (PP-AL), put the text into effect. immediate vote, to be rejected.

Although the agreement was only between the economic team and the senators, Randolfe said that there is no strain on the relationship between the government and the Chamber of Deputies. According to him, the postponement occurred because some of the party leaders are not in Brasília this week.

Regarding news that the Events Sector Emergency Resumption Program (Perse) had been the target of fraud, Randolfe said that Minister Haddad received a complaint and asked the Federal Revenue to investigate. At the beginning of the year, Haddad said that the program caused the government to fail to collect R$16 billion last year.