A Influência da Adesão aos Programas Especiais de Regularização de Dívidas Tributárias Federais na Situação Socioeconômica das Companhias Abertas Brasileiras

Abstract

This research supports the thesis that Brazilian public companies adhere to tax installments based on economic strategy and that social compensation serves as rhetoric from governments and corporations to justify tax amnesties. To confirm the thesis, the study aimed to verify the influence of adherence to special tax debt settlement programs on the socioeconomic situation of Brazilian publiclyheld companies that adhered to the tax installments offered by the Union. The research sample consisted of 140 publiclyheld Brazilian companies that renegotiated tax debts in the Special Tax Regularization Program (PERT, in Portuguese) in 2017 and 164 companies that did not join the program. The study focuses on the period from 2015 to 2019, which is limited to the analysis of the comparison of companies two years before and two years after joining the program. For the analysis of the economic situation, insolvency risk was considered with the model by Altman et al., (2016), as well as the profitability and liquidity. In the social aspect, it identified an average amount of investments in social projects developed by the companies, distribution of values added by the companies and variation in the number of employees. Regarding the treatment of the data, it used Student’s TTest of independent samples and quantile regression. Effects of other factors were controlled through industry; size; types of audit; ranking in Brazil’s governance levels; Brasil, Bolsa, Balcão (B3); the state in judicial reorganization and level of economic activity. Results suggest improvements in the insolvency Zscores of companies that joined the PERT program, differing from other companies that did not join, depending on the industry and size. However, companies that joined the program and had financial need were not able to reduce their insolvency risks after joining. Based on the analysis of economic indicators of liquidity and profitability, it was found that adherence favors companies with better economic situation indices but causes less capacity to pay debts. Considering social, although companies that joined PERT distribute a greater portion of the added value to personnel, thirdparty capital and government, companies did not increase the proportion of employees after joining the tax installments, in addition to reducing expenditure on external social projects. These findings refute the justifications used to implement fiscal refinancing programs, suggesting that they are rhetorical fallacies used by interested groups, but inefficient to recover companies in financial difficulties. Therefore, it was concluded that most organizations that joined the program were in better economic conditions, which means that PERT was chosen as a less costly source of financing and with less enforcement of compliance. In addition, there is no social consideration for the use of public resources by companies. This aspect suggests the need for more effective criteria for adherence to tax installments that consider the socioeconomic benefits generated by corporations