The president of the Chamber of Deputies, Hugo Motta (Republicans-PB), said that there is a possibility of creating a tax on transactions with cryptocurrencies so that the government withdraws from the project to increase the IOF (Tax on Financial Transactions).

As reported by the newspaper O Globo, Motta said on Monday night (2) that the proposal is 'a possible path', but that nothing is finalized yet. The president of the Chamber met with the Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, to discuss ways to reach a consensus.

Motta was cautious when discussing the possibility of the tax increase project for cryptocurrencies: 'Let me finalize it properly so I don't give information and it turns out to be something else. It involves the economy, we have to be careful.'

The Ministry of Finance announced on May 22 a series of increases in the IOF to boost revenue, a measure seen as essential to maintain fiscal balance.

In light of this, Hugo Motta said that the government had ten days to propose alternatives, otherwise Congress would vote to overturn the decree.

Itaú's chief economist advocates for the measure

The creation of a tax on cryptocurrencies to alleviate the IOF has been debated since the beginning of this crisis and gained traction when Itaú's chief economist, Mario Mesquita, stated in an interview that the government should create taxes on bets and cryptocurrencies to compensate for what it will lose in revenue due to the rollback of some IOF increases.

When asked about the details of the new taxes on cryptocurrencies, Mesquita said that ideally there should be no tax at all. However, given the current scenario, he sees a lack of equality among sectors of the financial market.

'Ideally, there would be no IOF, but it doesn't seem sensible to exempt this segment [crypto] given that it will tax others,' Mesquita said in an interview with journalists on Wednesday (28), as reported by the newspaper Folha de S. Paulo.

Pedro Schneider, the bank's economist, also participated in the interview, providing more details about the imbalance that the institution sees: 'The ideal compensation on the revenue side is to return to an agenda of reducing distortions and inefficiencies, such as the case of cryptos, which are not taxed, but travel credit cards are taxed, sending money is taxed.'

Increase of IOF

The financial market had a jolt on May 22 when the Ministry of Finance announced that it would raise the Tax on Financial Transactions (IOF) in various scenarios. As soon as the news began to spread and the buzz increased, the federal government reversed course and canceled part of the changes — fearing a new episode like the Pix crisis.

The changes would make it more expensive for Brazilians to send money to accounts abroad, increasing the IOF from 1.1% to 3.5%. Additionally, it would raise the cost of investments in foreign assets and products by Brazilian funds, going from a zero rate to 3.5%.

The government has rolled back and canceled the increase in these two scenarios (remittances to accounts and fund investments), but maintained higher rates in several other scenarios.

Among the implemented changes, one of the main ones is the charging of a 5% IOF on monthly contributions exceeding R$ 50,000 in life insurance with survival coverage — a measure aimed at taxing products that function, in practice, as a form of investment.

Credit cooperatives also underwent changes: those with annual transactions above R$ 100 million will now be treated as regular companies for tax purposes, losing the differentiated tax regime that was in place until then. In the case of credit granted to companies — both under the general regime and those opting for Simples Nacional — the IOF rates were adjusted, but the government has not yet disclosed the exact percentages.

In the foreign exchange segment and cash operations, the new IOF rate was set at 3.5%. Other financial operations involving the sending of resources outside the country, but not fitting into specific categories, will also be taxed at the same rate of 3.5%.