AMENDMENTS TO THE CNPJ REGULATION

On December 29, 2016, the Normative Instruction No. 1684 (“NI 1684”) was issued by the Brazilian Federal Revenue Office (“RFB”), in order to amend and clarify certain provisions of the Normative Instruction No. 1634 issued on May 6, 2016 (“NI 1634”), which regulates the Brazilian Corporate Taxpayers’ Registry (“CNPJ”).

Among other amendments, NI 1684 postpones from January 1st, 2017 to July 1st, 2017 the obligation to inform the complete corporate structure up to the ultimate beneficiary, as well as to present the relevant documents to the RFB. In this context: (i) companies to be enrolled with the CNPJ as from July 1st, 2017 shall be subject to such requirement; and (ii) companies already enrolled with the CNPJ before July 1st, 2017 shall inform the ultimate beneficiaries when they effect any change to their enrollments as from such date or up to the December 31, 2018.

It is important to highlight that the referred requirement is not applicable to publicly traded companies settled in Brazil or in countries where the public disclosure of all significant shareholders is required, as long as they are not incorporated in jurisdictions with favorable tax treatment or under beneficial tax regime (as provided by Law No. 9430/1996).

Failure to comply with the such requirements within the provided term may result in penalties of suspension of the relevant enrollment with the CNPJ and prevention of the legal entity to effect transactions with Banks.

The Corporate Department of Kestener, Granja & Vieira Advogados is available to provide any further information required on this subject.

This article is intended exclusively to provide information and does not contain any opinion, recommendation or legal advice from KGV Advogados in relation to the matters herein addressed. Copyrights are reserved to Kestener, Granja & Vieira Advogados.