RFB (Brazilian Federal Revenue) Ordinance No. 309, which introduces important changes to the administrative tax litigation in the Brazilian Federal Revenue, has recently been published. One of the main innovations is the creation of the Recourse Review Delegation of the Brazilian Federal Revenue (DRJ-R), with a national character, which will be responsible for coordinating the second-instance review of cases whose value does not exceed one thousand minimum wages.
DRJ-R will be composed of 12 appellate panels specialized by subject matter. Each appellate panel will specialize in a group of taxes.
Furthermore, DRJ-R will organize lots for random allocation among the appellate panels, which will be a distinguishing feature of this collegiate body. These and other innovations aim to expedite administrative tax proceedings and improve the relationship between the tax authorities and taxpayers within the Brazilian Federal Revenue.
The ordinance also establishes that adjudicators should not apply summaries or resolutions unifying divergent theses of the Administrative Tax Appeals Board (Carf) in their decisions and limits oral arguments in the appellate panels to 10 minutes. It’s worth noting that oral arguments through video or audio recordings, shared on a platform defined by the Brazilian Federal Revenue, are also authorized.
Another significant change is that low-complexity administrative tax proceedings (up to one thousand minimum wages) and low-value cases (up to sixty minimum wages) will be judged in the first instance by monocratic decision, that is, by a single adjudicator. This will reduce the time for legal consideration of cases in the regional tax offices.
All these initiatives brought by RFB Ordinance No. 309 will expedite the judgment of low-value and low-complexity cases, which make up the majority of the case backlog, without compromising legal certainty, as Carf’s understandings will be mandatory for DRJ-R’s decisions.
It’s worth noting that these changes were implemented to harmonize the second-instance review within the agency with functionalities already in place in the Administrative Tax Appeals Board (Carf) and should contribute to the improvement of administrative procedures at the federal level.