As is known, one of the objectives of the Repatriation Program was to increase the Treasury's revenue by granting benefits to taxpayers who decided to nationalize (repatriate) their undeclared resources, through the application of milder penalties, such as the imposition of fines.
The selection of taxpayers to be notified is being carried out by the RFB's risk management department and is based on preliminary data collected. The forecast for the next five years is that “hundreds of audits”, which means that not all beneficiaries will be audited, but rather those for whom the RFB deems it necessary to access documents that corroborate the statements made at the time of accession. The purpose is to obtain proof of the origin of the funds obtained or, in other words, to analyze whether they came from legal or illegal sources.
As announced by the Federal Revenue Service (RFB), taxpayers who are notified must verify the sources provided at the time of enrollment, and the data provided will be cross-referenced with information provided by foreign regulatory agencies. If there are any inconsistencies, the Federal Public Prosecutor's Office (MPF) will intervene to handle the cases. If irregularities are found, the taxpayer may be excluded from the Program, lose the right to criminal amnesty, and be prosecuted for money laundering, crimes against the tax system, and, possibly, crimes against public administration.
This situation has caused uncertainty among beneficiaries because, initially, the Program stipulated that proof of the origin of the funds was unnecessary, and that verification would be the responsibility of the agency itself. The justification for the change introduced by the aforementioned Declaratory Act is that the need for proof constitutes a "new phase" of the Repatriation Program's implementation, in which, in addition to the obligation to document the legality of the funds received, taxpayers will be subject to inspections by the tax authorities.
Thus, the announced stance has been questioned by those who expected the burden of proof regarding any illegality in the receipt of resources to fall on the RFB itself, in accordance with the stance it had adopted until the end of 2018.
