The draft law on zero VAT was discussed in parliament on Wednesday

The Assembly of the Republic will discuss on Wednesday a proposal for a law that reduces the VAT rate applied to a set of food products to 0% and decided that the parties will be able to submit proposals for changing the specialty.

The timetable was determined at an extraordinary meeting of the leaders’ conference that took place this Tuesday and was announced to journalists at the end by the press secretary, Socialist MP Maria da Luz Rocinha, indicating that there was “the agreement of all parties.”

The agenda of the plenum of the Assembly of the Republic for Wednesday included an interpellation to the government, proposed by the Bloc of the Left, about “illegal prices for essential goods and the impoverishment of the population”, which will no longer take place.

A spokeswoman for the leaders’ conference indicated that “there was an understanding” that BE would be the first party to ask questions of the government, opening a debate that would last about two hours.

The parties will not be able to drag out projects for debate on Wednesday, but will be able to submit proposals to change the government’s bill by the end of the day on Friday, which will be discussed on an ad hoc basis, MP Maria Luz Rocinha also said.

He added that a consensus vote on a proposed law exempting certain foodstuffs from VAT will take place on Friday, during the regimental voting period.

Also speaking to reporters at the end of the meeting, the BE parliamentary leader noted that “The government introduced a bill earlier this week aimed at reducing VAT on certain items in the essentials basket, and saying that he wanted to prioritize this process in order to reduce the cost of these goods”, his party gave “agreement to change tomorrow’s agenda”. [quarta-feira]”.

Pedro Filipe Soares also stated that “government measures are not relevant at the moment” that the country is going through and defended that “VAT cuts without price controls should ensure that large distribution abuses continue to take place”.

“We will start the debate putting the government in front of the limits of its proposal, which the government itself discounted a few weeks ago, but by the end of the week we will present proposals for amendments aimed at controlling, limiting the abuses of widespread use by controlling the prices of these essential commodities,” he said.

PAN also announced that it will make a proposal to amend the government’s bill to include zero VAT products, such as “vegetable law, vegetable yogurt or tofu.”

A spokesman and sole MP warned that people who opt for a vegetarian diet or have food intolerances are “withdrawn from that support”, which “should be taken care of in this proposal”.

Inés de Souza Real has indicated that she will also propose that this measure of applying a zero VAT rate to the food bundle be in place “at least until the end of the year” so that there are “oversight mechanisms to ensure that this happens.” support families effectively” and that pet food also has reduced VAT.

MP Livre also said that he would propose amendments to the government decree, given that the VAT reduction is not accompanied by “the establishment of a real crisis office with the Ministry of Finance, the Ministry of Economy and the Ministry of Agriculture, and if not accompanied by periodic meetings to monitor the measures and to ensure that there are falling prices and, above all, that this fall should not be instantaneous, that it should be maintained, in which case these measures have a high probability of failure.”

And he advocated holding periodic meetings with “all interested parties, manufacturers, distributors, consumers and workers to monitor measures”, in addition to the collection of information by the Ministry of Agriculture’s planning office and the price observatory announced by the Government, which allows “in certain products, in if necessary, impose restrictions on the amount of profit.