Rules to file RAIS for 2018 base year are established

The Ministry of Economy, by publishing the ME Ordinance 39, on Feb-15-2019, established the rules for preparing and filing the Annual Report on Social Information (RAIS) for 2018 base year.

The RAIS is intended to meet the governmental entities of the social area needs for control, statistics, and information, contributing to the deployed public policies and in the monitoring of the labor market.

The information required to complete the RAIS is found in the RAIS Guidance Manual - edition 2018, available on the Internet at http://trabalho.gov.br/rais and http://www.rais.gov.br.

1) Deadline

The deadline to file the RAIS begins two (2) days after the publication of this Ordinance and ends on Apr-05-2019.

2) Filing

Statements must be provided through the Internet, using the Rais File Generator program (GDRAIS2018), which can be obtained at one of the aforementioned websites.

The statement is obligatorily transmitted using a digital certificate, valid in the ICP-Brazil standard for all establishments that have from 11 relationships.

3) Compulsory requirement

The compulsory requirement to file to RAIS falls on:

a) urban and rural employers;

b) branches, agencies, subsidiaries, representations or any other form of entities related to the legal entity domiciled abroad;

c) freelancers or professionals who had employees in the base year;

d) direct, autarchic and foundational administration agencies and entities of the federal, state, Federal and local governments;

e) professional councils created by law with responsibilities of professional performance inspections, and parastatal entities;

f) condominiums and civil societies; and

g) extrajudicial registries and companies consortia.

The company or entity that has branches, agencies, or subsidiaries must state RAIS separately, per establishment, listing in each employment relationship that has occurred in the base year or in progress and not only those existing on December 31.

RAIS covers a wide range of information, including, but not limited to the:

• amounts of collection of union contributions, in cases where the union contribution discount has been previously and expressly authorized by workers who participate in a particular economic or professional category, in behalf of the representative union of the same category;

• trade union entity to which they are affiliated; and

• employees who had discount of associative contribution, with the identification of the beneficiary union entity.

Important: The establishment without employees or that remained inactive in the base year is required to file the Rais Negativa (only filling in the registration data of the establishment, and dates of termination during the period). This requirement does not apply to the individual microentrepreneur (MEI).

4) Penalties

The employer who fails to file RAIS within the deadline, omits information or provides a false or inaccurate statement shall be subject to the penalty provided for in the legislation.