An accounting recognition analysis of tax incentive arising from adherence to the “Rota 2030 Program – Mobility and Logistic”

Abstract

The Brazilian automotive industry started the year 2018 with a big question: "Will the Rota 2030 program - Mobility and Logistics be approved?". The discussions took place throughout the year, and then, on December 10, 2018, the law No. 13,755 was approved, granting automotive companies a series of tax benefits, with a counterpart in investments in Research and Development (R&D). In this context, this article aimed to assess whether automotive companies qualified for the program have adopted the same accounting treatment for recognition and disclosure of government grants arising from the Rota 2030 program. This is a qualitative, descriptive study, whose data were collected from interviews carried out with managers of companies in the automotive sector. The selected profile of each company aims to establish a comparison between business models, size and target audience, in order to determine whether these characteristics were relevant in decision-making process over the appropriate accounting treatment to be applied. Notwithstanding firm characteristics, it was possible to observe that there is no unanimity in this choice, where part of the interviewed companies use a different accounting from the others. The result of the study also demonstrated that, due to the fact that the amount of government grants generated implies equity and income indicators, and that can even determine the permanence of the company in the Rota 2030 program, the choice for accounting treatment becomes relevant in the decision-making process and analysis of results.