In 20 years, the Rouanet Law invested BRL 9.1 billion within culture

Last Friday, the Law number 8.313 /91, known as the Rouanet Law completed 20 years of existence. In two decades, by fiscal resignation, the Ministry of Culture supported 31.125 projects, investing BRL 9.1 billions (given until 22/12/11). In this period, at the same time that the law was improved – with many normative instructions – the MinC also tried to propose a new legislation, after a wide debate with the society.

The project of the law from Procultura (PL 6.722/10) is at the House of Representatives, in the Finances and Taxation Commission. The expectation is that it is approved next year. “The culture developed so much that it doesn’t fit in the actual law, in dimension and in diversity”, says Henilton Menezes, secretary of Fomentation and Incentive to Culture of the MinC.

Concentration: Southeast and Performing Arts.

According to him, the way that the actual law was made, ended in concentrating resources in cultural segments – in which rejection gets to 100% - and in regions that are economic poles, as the axis Rio-São Paulo, that has the biggest part of the Brazilian Gross Domestic Product (GDP [ Produto Interno Bruto PIB]). “The new law has to find the corrections of these distortions”, evaluates Menezes. 

Last year, for example from the BRL 1.16 billion perceived, 77% stayed in the Southeast, when the North of the country had only 2,3%. In 20 years, 67,3% of the projects that got to perceive resources of the law had origin in this region. As there was concentration in one of the Brazilian regions, the same happened in the cultural segments. In 20 years, Performing Arts were the ones that most had projects (6.704) perceived resources, while Visual Arts was the smallest with (2.324). 

Menezes explains that the actual law will continue to be improved – in January the MinC might publish new IN with some changes – until the Procultura gets approved. After the new law is approved, the MinC has 180 days to be regulated. “We improve one, when we discuss about the other one”, says him. In his evaluation, the transition between on and the other law might take up to three to five years, in reason to the many projects in execution, around 12 thousand. 

Only shot

When the law was created in 1991, the Ministry of Culture was extinct and became an office - as other institutions. The investment in culture, by fiscal resignation, it was basically the only politic of the State for the area. In the first year of the existence of the law there were presented 32 cultural projects and 11 were authorized perceive resources. There were no approvals of projects in 1992. And in the following year, in 1993 only two cultural projects were approved, in the value of BRL 21.212,78.

            With the government of Lula that started in 2003, and the expansion of the cultural concept – considered under three dimensions (citizenship, symbolic and economic), there was a boom of investment in the sector, since the spectrum of the passive areas received investment with fiscal resignation increased. In the first year of the government of Lula, as an example, it was perceived BRL 430,8 million. Last year, the volume got to BRL 1.16 billion.   

Procultura: better distributed

Menezes says that there’s a feeling, wrong, that the law should attend only the small – what’s not written in his objectives. “The law is for everybody, what it should have is a punctuation which the winner of more fiscal resignation would be those that gave more return to society”, evaluates him.

According to him, the proposal of the Procultura is that, to lower the actual distortions, the percentage of resignation wouldn’t be about the cultural segment and for a punctuation of system, in which the criteria could be gratuitousness, realization of the actions in many states (and not only in the state of origin of the resource), promotion of continuity formation, possibility of change of experiences and other criteria that prove return to all Brazilians. Or as is, the biggest the impact in the cultural environment, the bigger the incentive offered by the government.

In this way, it would get the resignation of 100% to those that had a high punctuation. As this, as fewer the points, lower would the resignation be – independent of the cultural segment. With this, according to Menezes, it wouldn’t only have a better distribution by segments and regions, but also a possibility of presentation of projects that would meet up the demand of the Brazilian society.

He gives as an example an spectacle, that can be take to regions of difficult access, that would have sign language or audio description that culminate in schools. Which is, that wouldn’t be restricted to the everyday circuit of a cultural production.

The criteria of punctuation are being discussed in the National Congress – there are those that believe that they must be in the law and others don’t, that must be standardized by the MinC. 

Reinforcement of the Fundo

Another change proposed with the Procultura is that a percentage of the fiscal resignation composes the Fundo Nacional da Cultura (FNC), in a way that the Ministry of Culture could then invest annually in projects linked to the priorities of cultural politics. In 2011, as an example, the FNC – without this resource – didn’t go by BRL 300 million, while the Rouanet Law invested BRL 1.35 billion. 

Menezes explains that in theory, when the law was created the FNC would attend the projects that didn’t get to be contemplated with the ficals resignation. Last year, what was perceived by the fiscal incentive, attended only 24,61% of all the Brazilian demand by these incentives, the MinC received 10.256 of acts looking for resources, coming from all Brazilian states.

The secretary reminds that, only last year, the fiscal resignation added up to BRL 77 billion, and only BRL 1.16 billion was for the culture. He adds that the Rouanet Law is the most transparent mechanism of fiscal incentive of Brazil.

All the projects are public, the process of analyses has the active participation of society, MinC makes the follow up during the realizations of the acts and the income statement is mandatory for those who receive the incentive. Besides that, all the numbers are available for any Brazilian, in any place on the webpage of the ministry, to be checked up.   

Translated by Larissa Rodrigues