Os desafios que o Brasil enfrenta vão muito além de seus planos para sediar as Olimpíadas de 2016 e a Copa do Mundo de 2014. O governo da presidente Dilma Rousseff tem pela frente o dever de desatar o nó de gargalos crônicos na infraestrutura do país. A avaliação consta de matéria publicada pelo jornal britânico Financial Times nesta terça-feira (29). Segundo a reportagem, os eventos esportivos são apenas uma oportunidade de o país mostrar que pode realizar grandes projetos, mas é necessário fazer muito mais para garantir progresso econômico no longo prazo.

O artigo destaca que o modelo que garantiu o recente sucesso econômico do Brasil – impulsionado pelos preços elevados das commodities e da emergência dos consumidores da classe média com acesso mais fácil ao crédito – não é suficiente para sustentar a expansão do Produto Interno Bruto (PIB) com o passar dos anos. O FT então alerta que o Palácio do Planalto terá de mudar de estratégia, investindo mais em infraestrutura.

O jornal cita o aumento das exportações de commodities nos últimos anos, como minério de ferro e soja, que têm congestionado rodovias e portos. O efeito dos gargalos em infraestrutura, diz o FT, é o sufocamento do crescimento do país – algo possível de verificar na desaceleração da alta do PIB que, em 2010 fechou em 7,5%, e em 2012 foi para menos de 2%. “Toda vez que falamos com um investidor no Brasil, o maior e mais importante problema que se fala é de infraestrutura”, diz David Beker do Bank of America Merrill Lynch, ao FT.

A publicação lembra e comemora o recente pacote de infraestrutura anunciado pelo governo, que prevê a concessão à iniciativa privada de 7,5 mil quilômetros de rodovias e 10 mil quilômetros de ferrovias federais. Em entrevista ao FT, Alberto Ramos, do Goldman Sachs, disse que as discussões agora finalmente giram em torno das questões certas. “Esta não é uma estratégia que vai lhe dar um crescimento espetacular no curto prazo. Mas com certeza é uma estratégia que pode elevar o potencial de crescimento”, disse.

A notícia, apesar de animadora para os investidores, ganha uma pitada de ceticismo por parte do FT. A publicação relembra que apenas pouco mais de metade do investimento previsto para a logística e serviços essenciais (água, saneamento, luz, etc) foi concluído pelo governo. Burocracia, problemas com projetos estruturantes e a própria inércia do setor público contribuem para os atrasos, diz o jornal.

Para superar a dependência do BNDES – praticamente o único financiador de longo prazo do país e que não dá conta de todos as demandas por crédito –, o governo anunciou a desoneração de imposto de renda ao setor privado e investidores estrangeiros em títulos para projetos de infraestrutura. Com os bancos europeus e americanos menos inclinados a emprestar na atual conjuntura de crise, os governos – federal, estaduais e municipais – têm de ser mais inovadores na maneira de atrair investidores, destaca a reportagem.

Por fim, a reportagem alerta para o risco de o Brasil apostar em projetos não-prioritários, como o do trem-bala, que vai ligar São Paulo, Campinas e Rio de Janeiro, a um custo de 33 bilhões de reais. E lembra dos “elefantes brancos” dos jogos do PanAmericanos, do Rio de Janeiro, que teve obras dez vezes mais caras que as estimativas iniciais.

Since the first edition of this survey in 1995, we have seen a remarkable increase in the number of countries introducing transfer pricing requirements. We have also seen the spread of transfer pricing rules from the developed markets in North America, Western Europe and Australia to the developing markets in Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe.

The Organisation for Economic Co-Operation and Development (OECD) Transfer Pricing Guidelines have also been revised since the last survey. These changes have increased the burden on taxpayers by introducing new concepts, such as “options realistically available,” to evaluate intercompany transactions, as well as proposing a more complex and rigorous approach to benchmarking transactions.

The United Nations also issued a draft of its Practical Manual on Transfer Pricing for Developing Countries, and the African Tax Administration Forum (ATAF) held its conference on transfer pricing in October 2010. Surprisingly to some, the United Nations manual and the ATAF conference have served to reaffirm the arm’s-length principle in preference to other transfer pricing methods, such as formulary apportionment.

The resilience of the arm’s-length principle is broadly affirmed in our survey, with all countries except Brazil indicating the application of arm’s-length approaches.

Against that backdrop, our survey revealed the following trends:

Tax authorities continue to increase their transfer pricing staffing

Despite governmental budget constraints in many countries, nearly all countries have increased their transfer pricing staffing, with plans for further increases. Taxpayers should not be complacent about their transfer pricing risk.

The documentation burden is growing, but the arm’s-length principle continues to hold sway

While the documentation burden is growing, taxpayers can take heart in the fact that a broad consensus exists with respect to the arm’s-length principle and its application, even down to years of testing and statistical measures employed. Method selection has become more flexible, with an almost universal acceptance of net profit-based methods.

The increasing geographic scope of documentation requirements imposes increasing benchmarking burdens

The viral spread of transfer pricing requirements poses a new challenge when taxpayers are called upon to perform
benchmarking studies for countries where public reporting of company financial data is limited or non-existent. Nonetheless, tax authorities at least claim to be pragmatic with respect to the acceptance of comparables from other markets.

Still little coordination of transfer pricing and indirect tax standards

Few tax authorities coordinate the enforcement of transfer pricing standards with the enforcement of indirect tax standards. The key exceptions are Estonia, Latvia, Peru, Portugal and Venezuela.

Transfer pricing scrutiny is not limited to perceived high-risk transactions

Just because taxpayers do not engage in perceived high-risk transactions, such as restructurings or cost-sharing arrangements, they cannot afford to ignore the need to put transfer pricing on a firm footing. Tangible goods transactions are still ranked as one of the primary target transactions by many tax authorities.

Transfer pricing reviews target high-profit industries and major trading partners, rather than tax havens specifically

Tax authorities continue to target sectors that typically report high margins and rely on significant intangible assets, such as the pharmaceutical industry, or that rely on significant international content in their production, such as the automotive industry.

Penalties have become more frequent and more onerous

The particular danger areas are Argentina, Brazil, China, Colombia, Ecuador, Finland, Hungary, Indonesia, Italy, Kazakhstan, Malaysia, Mexico and Venezuela, either because of their high penalty rates, willingness to impose penalties or both.

Even when penalties are not imposed, the risk of double taxation makes proper transfer pricing documentation important

Mutual agreement procedure (MAP) remains the predominant means of resolving transfer pricing disputes, and nearly all jurisdictions report that MAP claims are ultimately resolved without double taxation.

The availability of advance pricing agreements (APAs) continues to expand

APAs provide a potentially effective means to manage transfer pricing risk. Many countries have committed to the swift resolution of transfer pricing issues, but processing times remain long, particularly for two significant trading partners, the United States and Canada.

Recommendations

Taxpayers should recognize that they need more resources with increased geographic reach and some non-traditional skills. For example, experience with bargaining theory would help to deal with what the OECD calls “options realistically available.”

Companies should pursue tax certainty and evaluate APAs and rulings more than ever to better manage the growing geographic footprint of transfer pricing requirements, as well as the additional risk of adjustments and penalties.

Companies should continue to adopt new approaches to consistent global documentation and benchmarking to remain efficient and cost-effective when preparing transfer pricing documentation.

For much of this year, the Brazilian real has been one of the world’s worst-performing currencies. That largely served Brasilia well: it wanted a weaker real to help boost the slowing Brazilian economy. Lately, though, the real has been clawing back lost ground; during the first half of August, it even outperformed its Latin American peers.
But this week the central bank decided it had had enough. After a lengthy market absence, it intervened on Tuesday to stop the currency from strengthening further. The magic number it seemed to be defending? About 2 reals to the dollar.
“We currently see the 2.00 “big figure” as the government’s “line in the sand”, to be vigorously defended,” as Nomura put it.

That “big figure” is far weaker than the 1.53 peak that the real reached in July 2011. But it still leaves the real among the world’s most over-valued currencies. JP Morgan reckons the currency remains about 16 per cent over-valued in real terms. In July, the IMF similarly calculated the real to be 13 to 20 per cent overvalued. Nonetheless it seems the authorities judge the magic 2 level to be strong enough to contain inflation, but weak enough to stimulate exports. What chance it will stay there?

With some $350bn of foreign reserves, the central bank has a lot of firepower to sway the market this way or that. But intervention can only smooth a trend, not change it. Nor can it do much to alter the fundamentals that determine exchange rates – such as productivity, terms of trade and interest rate differentials. At the moment, these forces seem to be balancing each other out.

If the billions of dollars of infrastructure investments that president Dilma Rousseff announced last week come off, then that would boost Brazilian productivity – and tend to strengthen the real. But, at the same, the weakening world economy is sapping commodity prices, thus Brazil’s terms of trade, and therefore also the real.

As for interest rate differentials, the Brazilian central bank has cut interest rates to a record low of 8 per cent – and the market expects them to stay around there for a while.

The upshot, then, is that the real could hover around 2 to the dollar for sometime yet. Certainly most investors think that to be the case, according to the latest central bank survey. Two, it seems, is the magic number.