It was published on November 24, 2020, the Resolution of the Attorney General’s Office of the State of São Paulo No. 27/2020 that regulates the transaction of state debts recorded in active debt created by Law No. 17,293/2020.
Thus, legal entities that have debts registered in the active debt can transact state tax debts, through the following modalities:
(i) By adhesion: when done electronically, according to a proposal established by the State Attorney General’s Office in a public notice, with the purpose of extinguishing the collection of the active debt or legal action;
(ii) Individual, in the cases of (a) collection of the active debt through a proposal from the debtor or the State Attorney General’s Office, and (b) legal action concerning the registered debt, at the plaintiff’s proposal.
The taxpayer with updated enrolled debt in an amount equal to or less than R$10,000,000.00 (ten million reais) can only make the transaction in the modality by adhesion.
It is worth clarifying that the discount on interest and fine will be granted by the Attorney General’s Office of the State of São Paulo, according to the recoverability index of the state tax debt (that is, the lower the possibility of recovery, the higher the discount).
In this way, the aforementioned administrative body assigns grades, called “ratings”, to the debts from A (maximum recoverability) to D (minimum recoverability), as follows:
- Rating A: discounts will be 20% on interest and fines, up to the limit of 10% of the total updated value of the debt, on the date of approval;
- Rating B: discounts will be 20% on interest and fines, up to the limit of 15% of the total updated value of the debt, on the date of approval;
- Rating C: discounts will be 40% for debts, with a limit of 20% of the total updated value of the debt, on the date of approval;
- Rating D: discounts will be 40% for debts, with a limit of 30% of the total updated value of the debt, on the date of approval;
Ratings are assigned taking the following criteria into consideration:
- valid and liquid guarantees, such as judicial deposits;
- payment history of the taxpayer;
- time of registration of the taxpayer’s debts as collectible debt;
- financial condition of the taxpayer to afford the transaction;
- possibility of the State of São Paulo winning the lawsuit whose tax debt was included in the transaction;
- cost of judicial collection of the debts included in the proposal.
It is important to emphasize that the taxpayer will only know the grade assigned to his or her debt after submitting the proposal or adhering to the state debt transaction.
Finally, it is worth mentioning that the aforementioned PGE Resolution no. 27/2020 began to take effect on December 10, 2020.