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☆ Brazil's Senate Leader Pacheco Says Government to Revoke Payroll Tax Proposal
▼ + stars: | 2024-01-19 | by ( Jan. | At A.M. | ) www.usnews.com time to read: +1 min

(Reuters) - Brazilian Senate leader Rodrigo Pacheco said on Friday the government would revoke a proposal it made to phase out the extension of payroll tax exemptions for various labor sectors, yielding to the will of the lawmakers on the matter. Speaking at a Lide Group event in Switzerland, Pacheco said that payroll tax exemption for 17 sectors of the economy until 2027 would remain. "The exemption will stand, and there is a commitment from the federal government to...revoke this provisional measure in the part that concerns the payroll exemption," Pacheco said during a panel session at the event in Zurich. Lawmakers voted to extend payroll tax exemptions for 17 labor sectors until 2027, with an impact of 12 billion reais ($2.44 billion) that had not yet been incorporated into the 2024 budget. The government package, which met with immediate political opposition, proposed reducing and gradually phasing out these benefits.

Persons: Rodrigo Pacheco, Pacheco, we've, Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Eduardo Simões, Steven Grattan, Kirsten Donovan Organizations: Reuters, Lawmakers Locations: Switzerland, Zurich

BRASILIA, July 7 (Reuters) - Brazil's lower house of Congress approved on Friday the main text of a tax reform that will restructure the country's complex consumption taxes, a move President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva touted as a "great victory". The bill will now be sent to the Senate, where it will also be voted on in two rounds. "Brazil will have its first tax reform of the democratic period ... We are working towards a better future for everyone." Markets reacted positively to the lower house approval, with Brazil's real strengthening more than 1% against the dollar, while benchmark stock index Bovespa (.BVSP) jumped 1.65%. 'A NECESSITY'The lower house approved the reform by 382-118 in the first round of voting held late on Thursday.

Persons: Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva, Lula, Fernando Haddad, Haddad, Rodrigo Pacheco, Arthur Lira, Jair Bolsonaro, Maria Carolina Marcello, Carolina Pulice, Gabriel Araujo, Michael Perry, Devika Syamnath, Alistair Bell Organizations: Lawmakers, Senate, Markets, JPMorgan, Finance, Workers ' Party, Thomson Locations: BRASILIA, Brazil

"Inflation expectations are still very high," Campos Neto told a seminar hosted by newspaper Folha de S.Paulo on Monday, highlighting elevated long-term forecasts as particularly problematic. "Long-term forecasts remained little changed," the central bank chief said. "And we have a problem that are long-term inflation expectations persistently stuck around 4%". In the minutes of its May meeting, the central bank expressed concerns about inflation expectations, saying it continued "to assess that de-anchored expectations raise the cost of bringing inflation back to the target". Campos Neto acknowledged that headline inflation has been slowing down in Brazil, but noted that the core index remains "high" and "well above target".

☆ Brazil woos sceptical foreign investors with new fiscal plan
▼ + stars: | 2023-04-24 | by ( ) www.reuters.com time to read: +4 min

Rebounding commodity prices and a hawkish, independent central bank made Brazil an emerging market investor darling last year. But stocks are in the red in dollar-terms (.MIBR00000PUS) in 2023 compared to small gains in wider emerging markets (.MSCIEF) and a more than 20% rise in Mexico's equities (.MIMX00000PUS). "It feels to me like there are a lot of things that can go wrong," said William Jackson, chief emerging markets economist with Capital Economics. Ronaldo Patah, chief investment officer Brazil at UBS Wealth Management, said that despite uncertainties, Lula's fiscal reform suggested he had shifted his focus to the future -- and away from unravelling previous reforms. "Foreign investors have goodwill for Brazil - they want to invest."

☆ Brazil presents charges against Jan. 8 pro-Bolsonaro riot participants
▼ + stars: | 2023-01-18 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +2 min

BRASILIA, Brazil — The office of Brazil’s prosecutor-general has presented its first charges against some of the thousands of people who authorities say stormed government buildings in an effort to overturn former President Jair Bolsonaro’s loss in the October election. More than a thousand people were arrested on the day of the Jan. 8 riot, which bore strong similarities to the Jan. 6, 2021, riots at the U.S. Congress by mobs who wanted to overturn former President Donald Trump’s loss in November’s election. “The ultimate objective of the attack ... was the installation of an alternative government regime.”Supporters of Brazil's former President Jair Bolsonaro rifle through papers on a desk after storming the Planalto Palace in Brasilia on Jan. 8. Eraldo Peres / APThe attackers were not charged with terrorism because under Brazilian law such a charge must involve xenophobia or prejudice based on race, ethnicity or religion. The prosecutor-general’s office sent its charges to the Supreme Court after the Senate’s president, Rodrigo Pacheco, last week provided a list of people accused of rampaging through Congress.

Pacheco's office and the U.S. embassy in Brasilia did not immediately respond to requests for comment. Separately, a group of 74 federal lawmakers in the United States and Brazil released a joint statement on Wednesday condemning the political violence in Brasilia and Washington that came two years and two days apart. The statement, signed mainly by progressive lawmakers in both countries, was articulated by the Washington Brazil Office, a group promoting bilateral dialogue in defense of human rights and sustainable development. "It is no secret that ultra-right agitators in Brazil and the United States are coordinating efforts," they wrote, citing ties between associates of Trump and Bolsonaro. The Jan. 6 committee's final report, released last month, said Trump should face criminal charges for inciting the deadly riot.

The complaint was met with skepticism by election authorities and other political figures who have recognized Lula's victory. The head of Brazil's Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, said the election result was "unquestionable," while the center-right Brazilian Social Democratic Party (PSDB) called Bolsonaro's challenge "senseless." When the PSDB challenged the result of the 2014 presidential election, the investigation took one year and no irregularities were found. Vice President Hamilton Mourao, on a trip to Portugal, acknowledged on Wednesday that Bolsonaro's challenge was unlikely to succeed but said Brazil's electoral process needed more "transparency." Analyst Andre Cesar at Hold Legislativa consultancy said, however, that the challenge would provide ammunition for an ongoing protest movement of Bolsonaro's hardcore supporters.

☆ Bolsonaro contests Brazil election, demands votes be anulled
▼ + stars: | 2022-11-22 | by ( Associated Press | ) www.nbcnews.com time to read: +6 min

Neither explained how that might have affected election results, but said they were asking the electoral authority to invalidate all votes cast on those machines. Diego Aranha, an associate professor of systems security at Aarhus University in Denmark, who has participated in official security tests of Brazil’s electoral system, agreed. Bolsonaro spent more than a year claiming Brazil’s electronic voting system is prone to fraud, without ever presenting evidence. Brazil began using an electronic voting system in 1996 and election security experts consider such systems less secure than hand-marked paper ballots, because they leave no auditable paper trail. But Brazil’s system has been closely scrutinized by domestic and international experts who have never found evidence of it being exploited to commit fraud.

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