Lula calls emergency meeting to discuss "blouse tax" and bets.
President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva summoned ministers for an emergency meeting this Tuesday (August 18th) at the official residence of Alvorada, in Brasília. The agenda includes two sensitive issues for his reelection campaign: the end of the "blouse tax" and the future of sports betting in Brazil.
The meeting was hastily arranged, according to reports from a government official. The ministers only learned of the meeting early in the morning. The presence of Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and eight members of the government's top echelon indicates the political weight attributed to the two issues.
Those participating in the meeting at the Alvorada Palace included Vice President Geraldo Alckmin and ministers Dario Durigan (Finance), José Guimarães (Institutional Relations), Wellington César Lima e Silva (Justice and Public Security), Bruno Moretti (Planning and Budget), Guilherme Boulos (General Secretariat of the Presidency), Miriam Belchior (Chief of Staff), and Sidônio Palmeira (Secretary of Social Communication of the Presidency).
Offensive against betting
Lula has publicly stated that he supports ending sports betting and is expected to incorporate the issue into his reelection campaign. The president also stated that he did not ban betting because "he is not the owner of Brazil."
The federal government had already been adopting measures to reduce the impact of online gambling in the country. In July, the Ministry of Finance published a decree requiring betting companies to include warnings in their advertisements, similar to the warnings found on cigarette packaging. The messages mandated by the decree are three: “Ministry of Finance warns; gambling can cause addiction”; “Ministry of Finance warns; gambling makes you lose money”; and “Ministry of Finance warns; gambling is not an investment”.
The bill regarding blouses is at risk of expiring.
The other topic of the meeting has a deadline. The provisional measure that eliminates the 20% tax on low-value international purchases, known as the "blouse tax," expires on September 8th; there are less than three weeks until the first round of elections.
The provisional measure needs to go through a joint committee, formed by deputies and senators, before proceeding to a vote in the plenary sessions of the Chamber and the Senate. Last week, the government's political coordination in Congress prioritized the establishment of this committee as part of its concentrated voting effort. However, the committee was not established due to a lack of agreement among parliamentarians regarding the positions of president and rapporteur of the body. The expectation is that this will occur on September 1st, with the presidency assigned to a deputy and the rapporteurship to a senator.
The tax was created in 2024 and has generated political wear and tear for the Workers' Party government from the beginning. Given the assessment that the tax could cause electoral damage to Lula, the Provisional Measure was issued this year to end it. The short timeframe before the measure expires worries the Planalto Palace, which fears that the opposition and parliamentarians opposed to the proposal will deliberately let the Provisional Measure lapse to cause electoral damage to the president.
Retailers have been working with congressional authorities to prevent the measure from moving forward. The president of the Senate, Davi Alcolumbre (União Brasil-AP), met with a group of business leaders from the sector in July to discuss the issue.
