Alcolumbre says that ‘government defeat was made to several hands’

After the Senate approved, on Wednesday, the project of Legislative Decree that nullifies the increase in the financial operations tax (IOF), the president of the House, David Alcolumbre (União-AP), said that the government’s defeat “was built in several hands.” He recalled that Congress collaborates with the Lula government since before inauguration, by approving the transition PEC in 2022. Shortly before the Senate approval, the text had been approved in the House. As the Legislative Decree project does not go to the president’s sanction, it is promulgated after the approval of the two Congress houses.

“What this parliament has supported the government agenda should be recognized. They forgot what was done even before receiving the presidential range? What we will not accept are offenses for a legitimate action of Parliament. Against Brazilians. We much more help from what we disrupt the government.

The bill was approved in the Senate in symbolic vote. The proposal was based on late yesterday by the mayor, Hugo Motta (Republicans-PB), and the vote took President Lula and even congressional leaders by surprise. Motta and Senate President David Alcolumbre (Union-AP) gathered this morning to discuss the issue. The Ministry of Finance calculates a collection of R $ 10 billion with the proposal.

The overthrow of a decree is a rare measure in Congress: the House has approved less than 1% of the legislative decree projects presented at the House since 1989 aimed at suspending acts from the President of the Republic. Congress can overthrow acts such as government decrees and ordinances – which needs to be approved by Chamber and Senate.

Urgency

Last week, the House approved the urgency of this project with an elastic score from 346 to 97, which accelerates its processing. The political articulation of the government tried to use the period of June parties, in which parliamentarians are outside Brasilia, and the payment of amendments to comply with the crisis.

In parallel, he worked to build the agreement to resolve the impasse in the public accounts that the government needs, as well as meeting the congress, which criticizes measures that increase the tax rate.

The Minister of Institutional Relations, Gleisi Hoffmann, came to look for government leaders and the allied base for conversations, but it was not enough to counteract the crisis. Motta’s decision took the Planalto Palace overlooked at a time when the government had been counting on this week and the next to reduce the temperature of the tension with Congress.

In social networks, shortly before the vote, Gleisi said that the decree has a regulatory nature, despite the tax consequences and defended the text. According to her, in addition to the $ 10 billion this year, for 2026, overthrowing can make it difficult to target primary result by $ 30 billion.

“To compensate for this loss of revenue, blockade and contingency, which are already $ 31 billion, all the most constant, will have to be raised to $ 41 billion, resulting in risk of stopping programs such as gas aid, social assistance, my home my life, half foot, among others,” he said.

She also said that parliamentary amendments will be affected by the overthrow of the decree. By 2025, the additional contingency of amendments will be R $ 2.7 billion, adding to R $ 7.1 billion already contained, resulting in a total of R $ 9.8 billion, according to it. “In 2026, considered only the effect of this measure, the overthrow of the decree results in loss of R $ 7.1 billion for parliamentary amendments,” he said.

Also on social networks, Finance Minister Fernando Haddad said the federal government’s measure “corrects injustices.”

“The IOF decree corrects an injustice: fights the richest tax evasion to balance public accounts and guarantee workers’ social rights,” Haddad wrote on social networks.

Dissatisfaction

According to parliamentarians, in addition to the opposition to the Government’s decree, there is dissatisfaction that explains the overthrow of the decree. One is the low execution of the amendments. In the first six months of 2025, the executive adopted slower pace than in the same period of the first two years as Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva’s third term.

Although the government attributes the difficulties to delay in the approval of the budget, which only occurred in March this year, R $ 620 million were disbursed in the last seven days until this Tuesday, compared to R $ 152 million in the remainder of the year.

Parliamentarians also reported an irritation from the House with what they considered the Plateau attempt to push to Congress responsibility for a possible discharge of the light bill for Lula vetoes.

With the overthrow of vetoes last week, Congress maintained, for example, obligation to hire a series of plants. According to government members, the overthrow vetoes impose a total cost of R $ 35.06 billion per year in power tariffs for 15 years. These numbers irritated parliamentarians, who saw an attempt by the government to hold Congress responsible for a discharge in electricity bills.

The expansion of malaise added to the fact that a provisional measure, which will also be voted on Wednesday, foresees an increase in collection of up to R $ 20 billion to the government with the facilitation in the sale of pre-salt wells.

What the Rapporteur says

Motta chose as a rapporteur the Bolsonarist Deputy Colonel Chrisóstomo (PL-RO). He said in his opinion that the government “avoids at all costs to promote fiscal adjustment by containing spending.”

“Therefore, it was not been regulatory correction or search for balance in specific situations, but tax increase in the four bases of tax incidence: insurance, exchange, credit operations and operations with securities and securities,” he said.

The rapporteur also pointed out that the government’s modification in a second decree was not enough to avoid increasing taxes. All government decrees on IOF are annulled with the project.

Among the changes that had been made by the government in the IOF decree, and which were maintained after modifications, the government unified IOF’s collection on the country’s exit operations by 3.5%. Measure that directly reaches consumers.

This included purchases of international credit, debit or prepaid cards, purchase of currency in kind or the shipment of Brazilian taxpayers to their accounts abroad. In the latter case, the remittance for investment after partial revocation was safeguarded a day after the original publication.

The rate of 3.5% represents an increase in tax. In the cards, the fee charged until May 22 was 3.38%. For purchase in kind and shipment, it was 1.1%.