Lula's vetoes of the sports betting law block Congress' agenda from this Monday

At the end of 2023, President Lula vetoed three paragraphs of the Bill that dealt with taxation on bettors and another three on commercial promotions.

At the turn of 2024, the Civil House of the Presidency of the Republic sent message 749/2023, addressed to the president of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco (PSD-MG) informing the reasons for the vetoes:

“The maintenance of §§1 and 3 of art. 31 of the Bill would give rise to Income Tax taxation different from that found in other lottery modalities, thus creating a distinction in tax conduct without a motivating reason for it. Furthermore, the maintenance of §2 of art. 31 of the Bill would also go against tax equality, under the terms of art. 150, II, of the Federal Constitution, as it would introduce a logic of exemption from Income Tax in disagreement with the existing ordinary rules within the scope of receiving lottery prizes in general, established by art. 56 of Law No. 11,941, of 2008.”

After the publication in an extra edition of the Official Gazette of the Union, on December 30th, of Law 14,790/2023 with the vetoes, the Civil House met the constitutional deadline and forwarded the message to the Presidency of the Senate on January 3rd.

Therefore, the processing of vetoes, as determined by the Federal Constitution, will have the following dynamics:

• The filing of the message at the Legislative Secretariat of the National Congress triggers the constitutional deadline of 30 calendar days for deliberation of the veto by senators and deputies in a joint session (arts. 57, § 3, IV, and 66, of the CF).
   
• In accordance with the regulations, published separately, the matter is ready for deliberation by the Plenary. After a period of 30 days without deliberation, it is included on the agenda and will put other deliberations on hold until the final vote on the veto (art. 66, §6, of the CF).

In view of these rules, the separate documents were published, as determined by the Legislative Secretariat of the National Congress. The deadline for vetoes to be voted on in the Congress Plenary ends on March 3rd, also according to the Secretariat. After that, the agenda starts to be locked.

The calling of the joint session is the prerogative of the President of the Senate, Rodrigo Pacheco, and to reject the vetoes an absolute majority of votes from deputies and senators is required, that is, 257 votes from deputies and 41 votes from senators, computed separately. If a lower number of votes for rejection were recorded in one of the Houses, the veto is maintained.

As soon as the vetoes are deliberated, the corresponding parts of the project are sent for promulgation by the President of the Republic, who has 48 hours to do so. If it is not done within this period, it will be up to the president of the Senate to promulgate the law.

Source: GMB