Originally published in the January 2 edition of World Tax Daily (Copyrights Tax Analysts – www.taxanalysts.com)
Brazil’s official gazette of December 26 published Normative Instruction 798/2007, which regulates the filing of the 2008 simplified annual tax return for dormant companies (Declaração Simplificada da Pessoa Jurídica – Inativa 2008, or DSPJ 2008).
Returns must be filed online between January 2 and March 31, 2008, for companies that have been dormant (inactive) throughout 2007. For this purpose, inactive companies are those that have not carried on any operational, nonoperational, asset, or financial transaction, including investments in financial and capital markets, during 2007. Payment in 2007 of taxes related to years before 2007 does not eliminate the inactive aspect of the relevant company.
DSPJ 2008 also must be filed by inactive companies that, during 2008, are liquidated, spun off, split up, merged, or amalgamated, to the extent they have kept the inactive situation from January 1 and the date of the relevant corporate event (liquidation, split up, merger, and so forth).
DSPJ 2008 was created by Normative Instruction 484/2004, effective January 1, 2005, with the purpose of monitoring the use and destination of dormant companies, some of them holders of credit rights against the government or tax loss carryforwards.
David Roberto R. Soares da Silva