The Secretariat of Finance and Planning of the State of São Paulo (Sefaz/SP) republished, on August 9, the SRE Ordinance 52/23, which amended the regulation of requests for special regimes provided for in articles 479-A and 489 of the ICMS Regulation (RICMS/SP) and established by Ordinance CAT 18/21.

The new deadlines for the entry into force of decisions on special regimes are among the main changes It has been established that,:

  • if there is a request for extension of validity, the decision will have immediate effect, except in case of refusal, in which case the decision will be valid from the first day of the second month after the date on which the interested party was informed; and
  • if there is a request for Amendment of procedures provided for in the special regime in force, the decision will be valid from the first day of the second month after the date on which the interested party was informed.

Other item changed was the exemption from analysis of tax the regularity of the taxpayer. The analysis of fiscal regularity, the changes could be waived at the discretion of Sefaz, if it had already been carried out in another application for special regime submitted in the period of up to two years before the date of verification. Now, although the analysis will continue to be waived when it has already been carried out in a special regime application submitted previously, this occurs only in the cases of applications submitted less than 180 days from the date of verification.

Another amendment was the repeal of the exemption from the analysis of fiscal regularity of companies classified in categories "A+" or "A" of the Nos Conformes program, since paragraph 5 of article 9 was repealed.

Despite the repeal, in order to still benefit these taxpayers and speed up the process of applications, it was stipulated that the decision on the extension of the requests for special regime submitted by these taxpayers will be taken by the regional tax delegate.

For this displacement of competence to occur, Sefaz/SP will consider as "A +" or "A" the classification of the 12 months prior to the request for extension of the validity of the special regime, highlighting that:

  • To be considered as "A+", the company must have been classified:
    • in at least 9 of the 12 months immediately preceding the application;
    • in its most recent rating to the request.
  • To be considered as "A", the company must have been classified:
    • in at least 9 of the 12 months immediately preceding the application; or
    • higher, in its most recent rating to the request.

In the case of requests for extension made by these companies, the attribution of the decision-making competence to the regional tax delegate will only happen if the decision to grant or extend it has been issued by the Executive Board of the Tax Administration (Deat) or by the coordinator within five years.