This Tuesday’s Leaders’ College meeting marks the first meeting between Lindbergh Farias (PT-RJ) and Hugo Motta (Republicanos-PB) since the break between the two. The tension accumulating in recent weeks has turned the reunion into a test of the Chamber’s expression precisely at a time when the government insists on voting on the PL for the debtor Kontomaz this week.
On Monday, Lindbergh filed the charge. He said that “the country cannot witness multi-billion dollar operations against tax evasion schemes while the project remains on the shelf,” and said that “tomorrow is the day to do the right thing,” a message that the representatives read as direct pressure on the head of the chamber responsible for organizing the agenda.
But as O Globo showed, the assessment among leaders is that the proposal should only be presented next week, allowing more room for amendments to the text.
The reunion occurs after a series of attrition: the dispute over the Blindagem PEC; The complaint that the office is “turning a blind eye” to cases involving Eduardo Bolsonaro and Carla Zambelli; Guilherme Diret selected to report on Antifaction PL; The incident in which Alexandre Ramagem left the country despite his conviction led Labor members to accuse the Chamber’s leadership of negligence. This bundle of friction kept the two away.
Under discussion since 2022, Debtor Contumaz’s PL is creating criteria to identify companies that repeatedly fail to pay taxes as a business model. The text sets objective criteria – including recidivism, the amount of debt owed and the adoption of artificial structures – and allows government revenue and tax authorities to adopt more stringent measures, such as suspending registration, prohibiting tax benefits, and holding controllers accountable. The basic idea is to separate common defaults from organized schemes to defraud the state, especially in sectors such as fuel, cigarettes, beverages and online retail. Part of the center fears that the text will affect medium-sized companies and is pressing for guarantees, which has made the situation more sensitive.
Behind the scenes, Hugo’s allies claim that the chamber president has no intention of delaying the agenda due to disagreements with Lindbergh. However, rapporteur Antonio Carlos Rodríguez (PL-SP) still made adjustments to the text and avoided anticipating changes, reducing the margin of immediate voting. Parliamentarians point out that the slow pace of the report, combined with the tense political environment, has reinforced the understanding that there are no conditions for moving the issue to the plenary session this week.
In the face of the escalation, Hugo Motta met last Wednesday with the Minister of Institutional Relations, Glessi Hoffmann, in a sign of relief. But the conversation did not end the impasse with Lindbergh, who was not present. Prime Minister José Guimarães participated in the meeting.