Yesterday, November 30, the Government published a new implementation schedule for eSocial, created by the Management Committee. The main purpose of the rules is to facilitate the implementation of the system by employers and to give greater certainty to the process, in response to various requests submitted by companies and class entities.

Under the new rules, the implementation of the system will be gradual, in five phases. It will begin in the first half of 2018 and should be complied by companies with revenues over R$ 78 million per year.

e social phases table

The entities comprising Groups 2 and 3 may choose to start using eSocial in January 2018, which should be done in an express and irreversible manner, according to regulations published in the future.

The five phases will be devoted to meeting the following obligations:

  •  Presentation of information related to companies/bodies, with records of data from the employer and tables containing payroll parameters;
  •  Presentation of information regarding employees/civil servants, their relationship with companies/bodies, and other non-periodic events (vacation, sick leave, termination);
  •  Submission of payroll and periodic events;
  •  Replacement of the GFIP form (Social Security Information Form); and
  •  Presentation of information related to Occupational Safety and Health.

With the implementation of eSocial, the Federal Government hopes to reduce red tape in presenting information regarding tax, fiscal, social security, and labor obligations, since they will all be gathered together in a single environment. This should reduce the number of obligations to be met by employers (eliminating obligations with the same purpose) in order to make Brazil more business-friendly.

The gathering together of information will also facilitate the supervision of companies by the competent authorities, which may cross-check the data available, without tax auditors’ having to appear at the companies or wait for them to present documents.

The expectation is that this will lead to a huge increase in the number of assessments. Therefore, companies should review their current internal policies, also considering the recent Labor Reform (Law No. 13,467/2017 and Presidential Decree No. 808/2017), in order to comply with current legislation, at risk of deemed admission to prohibited practices in providing the information required by eSocial.

It is recommended that the review of practices be started as soon as possible, taking as a lesson the implementation of eSocial for domestic employers, when there were clear complications.