Escrituração Fiscal Digital da Contribuição
The Brazilian Government is trying to replace paper documentation with digital documentation. This article outlines everything you need to know about Escrituração Fiscal Digital da Contribuição and who is subjected to it.
The Escrituração Fiscal Digital das contribuições – EFD contributions – is part of the project SPED - Public System of Escrituração Digital – which seeks to integrate the treasury departments of the federation, state, federal district and in the future, of municipalities and control agencies through standardization, rationalization and sharing of digital tax information.
SPED also seeks to integrate the entire process of escrituração, with the replacement of the current physical documentation, paper, for electronic documents valid for all legal purposes. Therefore, all electronic documents are digitally signed using valid digital certificates – by the legal representatives or their attorneys, having this file legally valid for all purposes.
The digital certificates are issued in accordance with the rules of the ICP-Brazil which is the Infraestrutura de Chaves Públicas Brasileira, the Public Key Infrastructure.
Escrituração Fiscal Digital for Whom?
According to the legislation, all legal entities are subjected to the mandatory generation of digital bookkeeping for PIS/Pasep and Cofins. In 2012, the government made the use of digital bookkeeping mandatory not only for corporate taxpayers, but also for taxpayers of social security contributions over the gross revenue for the periods below:
- Referent to PIS /Cofins and Pasep: events that occurred from January 1, 2012, for legal entities subject to taxation on Income Tax based on their actual profit.
- Referent to PIS /Cofins and Pasep: events that occurred from July 1, 2012, for legal entities subject to taxation Income Tax based on the assumed or arbitrated profit.
- Referent to PIS /Cofins and Pasep: events that occurred from January 1, 2013, for legal entities referred to in § § 6, 8 and 9 of art. 3 of Law No. 9718 of November 27, 1998, and Law No. 7,102, of June 20, 1983.
- Referent to social security contributions over the gross revenue: events that occurred from March 1, 2012, to legal entities that develop activities related to arts. 7 and 8 of Provisional Measure No. 540 of August 2, 2011, converted into Law No. 12,546, 2011.
- Referent to PIS /Cofins and Pasep: events that occurred from April 1, 2012, to legal entities that develop activities related in § § 3 and 4 of article. 7 and in sections III to V of the chapeau of Art. 8 of Law No. 12,546, 2011.
How does it Works?
From the database, the legal entity shall generate a digital file, informing all fiscal documents and other operations with repercussions in the field of incidence of social contributions and from non-cumulative credits. As well as report all fiscal documents and other operations of the social security contribution on gross revenue.
This file should be submitted to import and validation by Programa Validador e Assinador – PVA EFD Contribuições – provided on page of SPED and RFB.
As a prerequisite for the installation of the PVA-EFD contributions, it is required to install the Java virtual machine. After importing or creating the bookkeeping, the same can be seen by the validator program, the program will allow:
- Import the file with the layout of the EFD-Contributions defined by the RFB
- Create a new bookkeeping by typing complete data
- Validate the contents of bookkeeping and indicate errors and warnings
- Edit via typing records created or imported
- Issue reports of bookkeeping
- Generation of EFD Contribuições file for signature and transmission to SPED
- Sign the file generated by digital certificate
- Control the transmission of the file to SPED
Content of the Escrituração
The information that must be provided in the escrituração is arranged by blocks of registry, as it's shown below. The registries are composed by fields that should be presented sequentially, as established in the layout of the Guia Prático da Escrituração, available for download on the EFD Contribuições web page in Portal Sped.
| Block | Description |
| 0 | Data of Registry |
| A | Fiscal Documents - Services INSS |
| C | Fiscal Documents I - Goods ICMS/IPI |
| D | Fiscal Documents II - Services ICMS |
| F | Others Documents and Operations |
| I | Operations of Financial Institutions and Similar, Insurance Companies, Private Entities of Social Security and Operators of Health Assistance Plans |
| M | Calculation of the Contribution and Credit of PIS/Pasep and Cofins |
| P | Calculation of the Contribution of Social Security Over the Gross Revenue |
| 1 | Complement of Escrituração - Balance Control of Credit and Retention, Operations and Other Information |
| 9 | Control and Closing of the Digital File |
The program will check the consistency of the information provided in the file and then digitally sign the file using valid digital certificate issued by ICP-Brazil and transmitted. The digital file will contain information referent to the operations performed and incurred for each monthly assessment.
As a general rule, if there is any information related to documents or operations generating revenue or credits of contribution, the taxpayer is obliged to provide it to SPED. The omission of information may result in penalties established by RFB.