On Thursday (April 9, 2026), the Court denied the request by the Attorney General of the National Treasury against the decision that suspended the collection of tax on crude oil exports from 5 multinationals.
Judge Carmen Silva Lima de Arruda, from TRF-2 (Federal Regional Court of the 2nd Region), said that “in a perfunctory analysis, typical of this procedural moment, there is no glimpse, in the aggravated decision, of teratology, abusiveness or flagrant non-compliance with the Constitution of the Republic, the laws or the dominant jurisprudence justifying the postulated injunction”. Ice cream a (PDF – 153 kB).
The injunction that suspended the charge was granted on Tuesday (April 7) by judge Humberto de Vasconcelos Sampaio, of the 1st Federal Court of Rio. The companies benefiting are Shell, Equinor, Petrogal, TotalEnergies and Repsol Sinopec. Here is the decision (PDF – 174 kB).
The 12% tax was instituted by the government of (PT) in March 2026 by . The judge assessed that the charge has a collection nature, which could make it unconstitutional.
When appealing, the federal government declared that the judge based his decision on a text that was not in the MP. The document, signed by prosecutor Vinícius Vaz Sanches, said that the decision cited an article with 3 paragraphs, the last item of which said that the revenue would be destined for “emergency fiscal needs of the Union”. Here is the resource (PDF – 480 kB).
According to the judge, “the appellant failed to demonstrate the risk of concrete, serious and current danger arising from maintaining the appealed decision, and there is no harm in waiting for the final judgment of this Interlocutory Appeal, at which time the collegiate body will rule in detail on the merits of the appeal”.
CUSTOMIZED
Lula’s package was adopted after the rise in the price of oil on the international market, associated with the escalation of tensions in the Middle East involving the United States, Israel and Iran. Diesel is considered strategic for the Brazilian economy because it influences the cost of transporting cargo and, consequently, the price of food and other products.
The government’s plan has two main actions: reducing federal taxes and creating a diesel subsidy. According to the Ministry of Finance, the MP was designed to prevent the international rise in oil from directly translating into price increases in the country.
In the case of diesel, a subsidy of R$0.32 per liter was created for producers and importers. At the same time, decree 12,875 reduces federal taxes on fuel.
The economic team’s estimate was that the measure would result in a drop of around R$0.32 per liter in the price of diesel. Together, the two measures sought to reduce the price of diesel by R$0.64 per liter.
In the case of fuel, the cost would be R$10 billion for the Treasury.
WHO PAYS THE BILL
The total cost of the measures would be financed by the federal budget. In practice, this means that taxpayers would bear the fiscal impact of R$30 billion.
The government’s assessment is that reducing the price of diesel can help contain inflation, as the fuel has a strong influence on the cost of transporting goods in the country.
When announcing the package, Lula said that the government made a “huge sacrifice” to reduce the price of fuel. The president also asked governors to evaluate reducing the ICMS on fuels in the States.
ICMS is a state tax and represents a relevant portion of the final price paid by the consumer at the pumps.
Crude oil was the main Brazilian item exported in 2025. In December, Brazil sold US$3.88 billion of the commodity. Of this total, 12% represents US$465 million, the equivalent of R$2.4 billion, which could be collected by the federal government if the export level is maintained in 2026.
