Opening of branch in Brazil - Official guide

The Brazilian government has published a manual  explaining how a foreign corporation can set up a branch in Brazil. 

Unfortunately, it is terrible. 

The problem is that the investment via branches was designed for a different era. The two basic acts that regulate it are respectively from 1916 and 1962. 

It was the time of huge factories shipped in blocks to poor countries, but totally controlled and administered from headquarters back in the UK or Germany. 

Nowadays, any big business will have a local board in Brazil which is trained in Brazilian taxation and that understands the Brazilian market. 

Moreover, under the old rules the branches were forced to publish the balance sheets of the worldwid eoperations in Brazilian newspapwers. Nobody is going to spend money on this kind of bureacracy nowadays. 

I`m saying this because I think the guide should have focused on the few exceptional cases in which using a branch is still fine. For example, if you are a trading company operating between Brazil and Uruguai. 

Without this context, the guide is actually boring and intimidating. 

The documetn missed the opportunity to display how incorporating a new company in Brazil has become a much quickers and smarter investment route than opening a branch. 

On the plus side, the guide brings some templates that can be very useful. The image on this post is an example. 

There is a Spanish version too. 

If you want to read the guides, you may download the English one here and the Spanish one here. 

For a more positive view on how to incorporate in Brazil you may check any of the links below: 

• Guide to Company Incorporation in Brazil
• Incorporating a Brazilian company, step by step
• How to incorporate a Brazilian company through foreign direct investment
• List of documents for setting up a company in Brazil

Tributação de empréstimos tomados no exterior por quem mora no Brasil

Em resumo, a tributação sobre empréstimos de longo prazo obtidos no exterior é de: 

IOF:  zero (mas o IOF pode mudar a qualquer momento, por isso é preciso conferir sempre);

IR:    15%, somente sobre o valor dos juros. A devolução do montante principal não paga imposto de renda.

É bom lembrar que a simples contratação do empréstimo não gera Imposto de Renda no Brasil. Não se paga IR sobre o dinheiro emprestado “que entra”.

A maior dificuldade é que o empréstimo deve ser registrado perante o Banco Central e a taxa de juros contratada deve seguir algumas regras. Especialmente, a taxa de juros não deve estar longe da média que se cobra no mercado internacional.

  

Recomendo que a operação de entrada do dinheiro seja feita por meio de bancos especializados em câmbio.

Sempre será necessário um contrato internacional, devidamente assinado. 

Você precisará dele para registrar o empréstimo no Banco Central e também par conseguir liberar a remessa junto à mesa de câmbio.