Overview
- The Tribunal de Contas da União approved a reference alíquota of 11.3468% (rounded to 11.3%) for the federal Contribuição sobre Bens e Serviços and sent the calculation and memory of methods to the Senate on Wednesday, October 28.
- Senators must fix the rate by December 15 by resolution or the TCU number will apply provisionally, and any later change only takes effect at the start of the second month after approval.
- The TCU included a 44.16% redutor for government purchases to limit the tax’s effect on public procurement and calculated the 11.3468% to preserve federal revenue neutrality at roughly 4.9861% of GDP (about R$528.5 billion in 2023–24 prices).
- Key regulatory choices remain unresolved — the Imposto Seletivo rates, the residual IPI list for the Zona Franca de Manaus, and percentages for créditos presumidos — and those decisions will change the CBS calibration and which sectors face higher or lower effective burdens.
- The government says exemptions, cashback and reduced rates will cut the CBS’s average effective charge below 8.5% in 2027, while private actors warn that combined CBS and the later IBS could push total consumption taxation toward about 30%, setting up political fights over sectoral treatments and fiscal adjustment.