The 1st Section of the Superior Court of Justice (STJ) reaffirmed the obligation of applying the social contributions PIS and Cofins to the amounts received as interest calculated by the Selic rate in cases of tax refunds for overpayments and the return of judicial deposits or payments made by late-paying customers. This decision, made unanimously in a repetitive appeal judgment, has direct implications for lower courts, which must follow this understanding.
The controversy arose after the Federal Supreme Court (STF) decided in September 2021 that IRPJ and CSLL do not apply to Selic. At that time, the STF understood that the interest represents a patrimonial recomposition and does not fit into the concept of profit, which led to the exclusion of these amounts from the calculation base of profit-based contributions.
Contrary to this reasoning, the STJ considered that Selic interest, when received by a legal entity, constitutes financial income. The case’s rapporteur, Minister Mauro Campbell Marques, emphasized that this interest is indeed operational gross revenue and therefore must be included in the calculation base of PIS and Cofins, regardless of the tax regime adopted by the company (cumulative or non-cumulative).
The minister highlighted that, from a tax perspective, the legislation clearly establishes that any increase in the value of taxpayers’ credits generated by the application of an interest rate should be treated as operational gross revenue. This includes both remunerative interest from contractual obligations and compensatory interest from the repetition of tax overpayments.
The thesis established by the STJ determines that “the values of interest calculated by the Selic rate or other indices received due to tax overpayments in the return of judicial deposits or payments made due to late contractual obligations, as they are characterized as operational gross revenue, are included in the calculation base of cumulative PIS and Cofins and, for integrating the broad concept of gross revenue, in the base of non-cumulative PIS and Cofins” (REsp 2065817/RJ, REsp 2068697/RS, REsp 2075276/RS, REsp 2109512/PR, and REsp 2116065/SC).
As a result, all courts in the country must follow this guideline, consolidating the understanding that income from compensatory and remunerative interest is included in the calculation base of these social contributions.