Expenses related to environmental preservation may be deductible from a producer’s income tax.

Producers who preserve the environment will be able to access tax benefits, such as deductions for expenses in income tax. The proposal that equates environmental preservation with rural activity was approved in the Senate's Agriculture and Agrarian Reform Committee (CRA) this Wednesday (15). Now, the text goes to the Environment Committee (CMA) and the Economic Affairs Committee (CAE), where it should have a final decision. Bill 3,784/2024 amends the income tax law on rural activities — Law No. 8,023 of 1990. The matter provides for adding "environmental services provisions" as a rural activity. In practice, it places preservation, recovery and reforestation activities on the same level as agriculture and livestock, for example, for the deductions provided for in the payment of the tax. Senator Alan Rick (União-AC), rapporteur for the proposal in the CRA and vice-president of the Parliamentary Agricultural Front (FPA) of the Northern region, highlighted that the measure helps producers who do not yet have well-established mechanisms for payment for environmental services. “This is an issue that has long addressed a desire of rural producers: to be able to characterize the provision of environmental services as a rural activity for the purpose of deducting income tax. Nothing could be fairer and more consistent, given the many obligations that Brazilian rural producers have and for which they are always penalized,” he said, before reading the report. Rural properties preserve approximately 29% of all native vegetation in Brazil. The data comes from the most recent edition of the survey "Attribution, Occupation and Use of Land in Brazil," by the Brazilian Agricultural Research Corporation (Embrapa), presented last year. In total, this represents 246.6 million hectares. In the report, the senator did not propose any changes to the original text. In defending the approval of the measure, he explained how the benefit should work and highlighted that the measure creates an incentive for environmental preservation within rural properties. “With this measure, rural producers who opt for the simplified rural taxation regime will be able to immediately deduct operational expenses from gross revenue related to environmental services for income tax calculation. Therefore, this will result in a lower tax burden for those who develop actions that generate environmental gains,” he analyzed.

This text was translated by machine from Brazilian Portuguese.