LatinNews Daily - 24 April 2024

*The Receita Federal do Brasil (RFB), the tax authority tied to Brazil’s finance ministry, has released its latest revenue figures, showing a tax take of R$190.61bn (US$37.14bn) in March. This marks an increase of 7.22% in real terms compared to March 2023. The accumulated revenue for the first quarter of 2024 came to R$657.77bn, up 8.36% in real terms from Q1 2023. In its monthly revenue report, the RFB attributed the yearly increase in revenue to several factors, such as “macroeconomic variables” as well as “the return of the PIS/Cofins [federal consumption taxes] on fuels”. Shortly after taking office at the start of January 2023, President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva issued a decree extending an exemption on PIS/Cofins for diesel, biodiesel, and other fuels which had been in place since 2021. This exemption expired at the start of 2024. The RFB also highlighted the revenue gained from taxes on offshore and exclusive funds, resulting from a government-backed bill aimed at closing the tax loopholes of the ‘super-rich’, which was fully approved by congress in late November last year and promulgated in December.