How to Export to Brazil - Sprint Lazio

Brazil – Ministry of External Relations
III.5.6. Parameterization (green, yellow, red and grey channels)
Once the Import Declaration has been registered and the customs expedition
procedures have been initiated, the DI undergoes fiscal analysis and is selected for
one of the verification channels. Such selection procedure is called parameterization.
There are four verification channels: green, yellow, red and grey.
An import selected for the green channel is cleared automatically without any
verification. The yellow channel means the instruction documents for the DI are checked
as well as the information appearing in the declaration. In the case of selection for the
red channel, there is, in addition to document verification, the physical verification of
the goods. Finally, when the DI is selected for the grey channel, a document examination
is performed, in addition to the physical verification of the goods and a special customs
control procedure is applied in order to verify elements that indicate fraud, including
the price declared for the merchandise.
Customs dispatch ends in customs clearance, in which the conclusion of customs
dispatch procedures is recorded. It is after customs clearance that the effective delivery
of the goods to the importer is authorized.
III.6. Tax treatment of imports
The fiscal regime applicable to Brazilian imports is not restricted to the Import Tax (II).
As explained below, the Brazilian tax system is moderately complex, and features, in
addition to the II, several taxes that, directly or indirectly, burden the import operation.
These taxes are levied on goods in general in the internal market and, as a rule, are
non-cumulative (such as those of the value-added tax system). In order not to burden
only national businesses and to afford an isonomic treatment to the goods produced
in the country, such taxes are levied at the time of Import and may be subsequently
compensated when these products are sold in the internal market.
Although calculating some of these taxes applicable to imported goods may not be
trivial, they are automatically performed by Siscomex itself. In most cases, it requires
that the classification of the merchandise and its customs value be provided to the
system and it will carry out the conversion of the transaction’s currency into the
Brazilian currency, calculate all the taxes and perform the automatic charge of the
total sum to the current account indicated by the importer.
III.6.1. Non-cumulativity of taxes
This system is similar to the one employed on value-added tax (VAT), adopted in
other countries, which allows for the value of the tax, paid at the time of import, to
generate a credit to the importer, which may be compensated by the tax due in
60 How to export to Brazil