States ask Guedes to petition STF not to judge diesel ICMS

Comsefaz sent a letter to the minister in an attempt to extend the deadline for States to respond to the Court’s decision

THE comsefaz (National Committee of Secretaries of Finance, Finance, Revenue or Taxation in the States and the Federal District), tries to delay the judgment in the STF of the suspension of the agreement between States for the collection of ICMS (Tax on the Circulation of Goods and Services) on the diesel.

Second letter, to which the newspaper Economic value had access, the Committee asked Minister Paulo Guedes (Economy) to send a petition to the Court not to deliberate on any precautionary extension without the formal “hearing” of the make up (National Council for Finance Policy), a body chaired by the head of the Economy.

On May 13, the Minister of the Federal Supreme Court (STF), André Mendonça, suspended the rules that allowed each State to charge a different amount of ICMS on diesel. The decision responded to a request from the AGU (Advocacia Geral da União), which had filed a lawsuit in the Court questioning the unequal collection of fuel tax in each state.

One day after the Court’s decision, the Committee had already decided to challenge Mendonça’s injunction. The forecast is that Conpeg (National College of Attorneys General of the States and the Federal District) will present the State defense through a technical note produced by the state secretaries of Finance.

According to the official letter, Comsefaz “It is still finalizing the preparation of the response to the precautionary measure already granted by Minister André Mendonça, for which he will present essential legal arguments for the Minister to consider whether to maintain the measure”. All members of Confaz are members of Comsefaz and the Minister of Economy, who acts as a kind of moderator, although he does not have the right to vote.

On the contrary, President Jair Bolsonaro presented, on Friday night (May 20, 2022), a petition to the Supreme Court asking the Court to take a decision on the alleged “omission” of the States in relation to the ICMS (Tax on Circulation of Goods and Services) on diesel. In the document, the AGU (Advocacy General of the Union) states that the entities of the Federation have adopted “recalcitrant posture” last week’s meeting, in which they did not agree to reach a solution for the tax.