Last Tuesday night, the Legislative Assembly of Rio de Janeiro approved Bill 2023/2020, which, in practice, makes fintechs and e-commerce sites responsible for the payment of ICMS tax owed by your customers on internet transactions. The text also opens the possibility of new ancillary obligations related to the issuance of tax documents resulting from these operations.
That is, if the shopkeeper fails to pay the tax on a sale, or does not correctly fill out all the paperwork for the government. Thus, financial companies and e-commerce sites through which the operation was carried out will have to bear the responsibilities of payment and even fines.
The project will still be submitted to the governor's sanction, author of the PL, but it is already worrying traders. According to companies and sector entities heard by UOL, this measure may simply make e-commerce in Rio de Janeiro unfeasible. So just at the moment when this channel became salvation – whether for the shopkeeper, who cannot sell because he had to close his physical stores; or for the consumer, who needs the Internet to purchase products because he is in quarantine.
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Proof of this is the growth in online sales only between February 25th and March 20th. According to data from the Brazilian Electronic Commerce Association (ABComm), in partnership with the Compre & Confie Movement, sales in the health category rose by 111%. In the area of beauty, perfumery and personal hygiene, the increase was 83%, while in supermarkets, e-commerce showed an increase of 80% in purchases.
And this growth takes place on a trend that was already strong even before the pandemic of the new coronavirus. In 2019, e-commerce grew by 13.5% compared to 2018, according to Mastercard SpendingPulse. “This law, if enacted, creates a series of operational difficulties. It's a law that will only increase litigation”, said a person who is responsible for the legal area of a large company that operates in the electronic commerce segment.
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For experts, the bill passed in Rio de Janeiro is unconstitutional.
The partner at Velloza Advogados, Fabrício Parzanese, said that the logic behind this law is the search by states and municipalities for more efficient forms of collection. “The logic of this type of measure is to concentrate the responsibility for declaring and collecting taxes in certain poles to facilitate collection”, he says.
