Brazil LC 224 Litigation Tracker: Injunctions and Cases

The question is not merely whether a company obtained an injunction. The decision turns on who obtained it, which court issued it, whether a later panel reversed it and who is legally covered. Article 4, paragraphs 2, 3, 4(VII) and 5 of LC 224/2025 remains effective for taxpayers generally. This page reconciles official dockets and judgments opened through 17 September 2026; it does not turn a reviewed sample into a nationwide win rate.

The answer in one screen: a real claim, not a general exemption

Forum	Stage on 17 Sep 2026	What a CFO may conclude
STF	Three direct constitutional actions; no injunction or merits ruling	No nationwide suspension
TRF4 test case	Admitted; defined stays in effect; merits issue pending	No regional merits thesis has yet been fixed
Individual appeals	Favorable and adverse appellate rulings	The result of each reviewed act is case-specific

The dispute is before Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court, has generated a regional test case and has already produced conflicting federal appellate rulings. That establishes legal significance, not invalidity of the statute.

STF: ADIs 7,936, 7,944 and 7,982 had not suspended LC 224 or reached the merits;
TRF4: the First Panel issued a taxpayer-favorable ruling, while the Second Panel reversed an injunction in a different case;
TRF3: the reviewed appellate judgments were adverse to taxpayers, including reversals of first-instance protection;
Test case: TRF4’s First Section admitted the IRDR and ordered defined stays, but had not yet selected the winning legal position.

Decision boundary. An inter partes ruling protects the parties to that case. A press headline about another company or association is not authority for your entity to reduce its payment.

Reconciled tracker of the official decisions

Official documents actually opened. Cut-off: 17 September 2026. This is not a census of every Brazilian case and supports no statistical win rate.
Case	Court / act	Result of the official act opened	Scope
ADI 7,936	STF · order of 10 Mar 2026	Expedited procedure; no injunction or merits ruling	No general suspension as of the cut-off; any concentrated-review ruling may have erga omnes and binding effect according to its terms
ADI 7,944	STF · order of 27 Mar 2026	Expedited procedure; interim relief not examined at that point	No general suspension as of the cut-off; any concentrated-review ruling may have erga omnes and binding effect according to its terms
ADI 7,982	STF · filed 25 Jun 2026	No injunction or merits ruling	No general suspension as of the cut-off; any concentrated-review ruling may have erga omnes and binding effect according to its terms
IRDR 5011077-58.2026.4.04.0000	TRF4 · First Section · 3 Sep 2026	Unanimously admitted; merits pending	First-instance cases proceed until ready for judgment and are then stayed; appeals at TRF4 concerning the issue are stayed. The future thesis will guide first instance, JEFs and TRF4 in the Fourth Region
AI 5008269-80.2026.4.04.0000	TRF4 · First Panel · judgment entered on the docket 18 May 2026	Favorable by majority in an appeal concerning interim relief; not a final judgment in the underlying action	Parties to that case
AI 5011750-51.2026.4.04.0000	TRF4 · Second Panel · judgment entered on the docket 19 Jun 2026	Adverse; injunction reversed	Parties to that case
AI 5012626-33.2026.4.03.0000	TRF3 · Third Panel · 2026	Adverse by majority; dissent recorded	Parties to that case
AI 5008364-40.2026.4.03.0000	TRF3 · Third Panel · 2026	Adverse by majority; dissent recorded	Parties to that case
AI 5009487-73.2026.4.03.0000	TRF3 · Sixth Panel · 2026	Adverse; earlier protection removed	Parties to that case
AI 5006030-33.2026.4.03.0000	TRF3 · Sixth Panel · 2026	Adverse; injunction reversed	Parties to that case

Each label describes the official act identified in that row. “Favorable” means favorable to the taxpayer in that proceeding; “adverse” means interim relief was denied or an earlier protection was removed. The continuing effect of relief is stated only if later docket activity was also checked. The table does not predict a different entity’s result.

Download the case index (CSV; Portuguese field labels)

Four distinctions that prevent a false green light

Procedural stage and scope are separate questions; both must be answered before a tax position changes.

Interim relief is not a final ruling

An injunction may temporarily suspend collection for the claimant while litigation continues. A panel may maintain or reverse it. The TRF3 appeals 5009487-73 and 5006030-33 show why a later event must be read alongside the initial headline.

A single-judge order is not an appellate panel judgment

An individual rapporteur’s order and a collegiate judgment have different procedural weight and stability. The tracker identifies the act rather than attributing one judge’s order to the whole court.

An individual case does not invalidate the statute for everyone

TRF4 appeal 5008269-80 shows that the claim is judicially arguable. Its result remains inter partes and does not waive LC 224 for an entity outside that case.

Admission of the IRDR is not a merits holding

TRF4 recognized conflicting decisions and admitted a regional test case. That step organizes future uniformity; it did not decide whether taxpayers or the Treasury will prevail.

The legal issue: tax-assessment method or tax incentive?

Taxpayer position	Federal Treasury position
Article 44 of the Brazilian Tax Code recognizes actual, presumed and arbitrated income as income-tax bases.	LC 224 expressly included the presumed-profit regime among the items subject to the reduction of benefits.
Presumed profit is a statutory assessment method designed to approximate taxable income.	The regime is elective and the legislature may change statutory presumptions by complementary law.
A uniform increase based on turnover may move the presumed base away from actual earning capacity.	The BRL 5 million threshold, application only to the excess and availability of actual profit support proportionality.

The taxpayer starts with article 44 of the Brazilian Tax Code, under which the income-tax base may be actual, arbitrated or presumed income. The CSLL analysis also depends on Law 7,689/1988 and its own presumed-result rules. From that premise, the claim argues that presumed profit is part of the income-assessment architecture, not inherently a subsidy, and that raising coefficients without evidence of higher margins may offend ability to pay, reasonableness and transparency.

The Federal Treasury starts with LC 224 itself: article 4, paragraph 2(II)(a) expressly includes presumed profit, while paragraph 3 treats actual profit without discounts or benefits as the reference system. It also argues that the election is optional, that there is no vested right to an unchanged method and that the threshold limits the increase to revenue above BRL 5 million.

STJ Theme 1,008 is often overstated. The sentence that presumed profit “differs from a tax benefit” appears in a dissenting opinion. The binding holding concerned whether ICMS enters the presumed-profit IRPJ and CSLL bases. It should not be presented as a settled STJ holding on LC 224.

What headquarters should require before deciding

Workstream	Evidence to assemble	Decision supported
Quantification	Quarterly revenue by activity, coefficients, full-base additions and IRPJ/CSLL workpapers	Cash exposure and accounting provision
Regime model	Book and taxable margins, loss carryforwards, credits and compliance cost	Presumed profit versus actual profit
Litigation	Payment slips, returns, coercive act, entity documents and current court position	Whether a claim is procedurally and economically suitable
Governance	Risk appetite, local sign-off, auditor treatment and reporting line	Pay, challenge or seek protected treatment

A responsible assessment starts with the amount, not the headline. The minimum file includes revenue by activity and quarter, the coefficients applied, IRPJ and CSLL calculations, amounts added in full, book and tax margins, the regime election, payment slips and documents showing the asserted tax obligation.

Quantify: use the LC 224 calculator and reconcile the output with the local books;
Compare: model presumed profit and actual profit under shared assumptions;
Qualify: determine whether a coercive act and pre-constituted documentary evidence support a writ of mandamus;
Measure risk: incorporate adverse rulings, possible reversal, security and cash-flow effects;
Define the requested effect: distinguish prospective suspension, refund recognition, offsetting and the limitation in article 170-A of the Tax Code.

The appropriate route depends on those facts. This page does not assume that every entity above the threshold has the same margin, evidence, forum or risk appetite.

How this tracker is maintained

News and aggregators can locate a docket; only the official act defines the result recorded here.

A row enters the table only after an official document is opened: STF docket, institutional TRF4 notice defining the test case, TRF4 judicial bulletin or TRF3 appellate judgment. A secondary report may locate a case but does not determine the result of the act.

The tracker records the result of the latest official act actually opened. It states that no later decision exists only when the updated docket was also checked. If an exact session date is absent from the accessible official document, the table does not invent one. The reviewed corpus has ten rows and does not represent every Brazilian proceeding; no win rate is calculated.

Update triggers: an STF hearing or order in the three ADIs, a merits judgment in the TRF4 test case, a new appellate panel judgment, or a new version of the Federal Revenue Service guidance. Cut-off for this version: 17 September 2026.

References and official sources

Put the legal claim against your entity’s actual exposure

The TaxUp team reconciles the local calculation, models presumed versus actual profit and separates litigation risk, cash effect and documentary evidence before any filing decision.

Request an assessment

Frequently asked questions

Is there a legal claim against Brazil’s LC 224 presumed-profit increase?

Yes. The core taxpayer argument is that presumed profit is a statutory method for assessing income under article 44 of the Brazilian Tax Code and that the increase may detach the base from ability to pay. The Federal Treasury responds that LC 224 expressly included the regime, preserved the actual-profit alternative and applies the higher percentage only above the threshold. Appellate rulings exist in both directions.

Has the STF suspended LC 224 for all companies?

No. As of 17 September 2026, ADIs 7,936, 7,944 and 7,982 were pending without an injunction or merits ruling that suspended the presumed-profit rule nationwide.

Has the TRF4 test case already decided the issue?

No. TRF4’s First Section admitted IRDR 5011077-58.2026.4.04.0000 on 3 September 2026, but had not decided the merits. Admission identifies the controversy and organizes the proceedings; it does not select the final legal position.

Does another company’s injunction protect my Brazilian entity?

An individual ruling generally operates between the parties to that case. A collective case requires a separate review of the claimant entity, request, territorial scope, membership and operative order. A headline does not establish subjective coverage.

What is the difference between an injunction and an appellate judgment?

An injunction is provisional relief, often issued early and subject to review. An appellate judgment is issued by a collegiate panel. Even an appellate judgment in an individual case does not automatically invalidate the statute for every taxpayer, but it generally provides a more developed signal than a single-judge interim order.

Did the STJ hold that presumed profit is not a tax benefit?

Not as the binding holding of Theme 1,008. The sentence often quoted for that proposition appears in the dissent. The majority holding addressed whether ICMS is included in the presumed-profit IRPJ and CSLL bases.

Can amounts already paid be offset immediately?

That should not be assumed. The procedural route, relief granted, final and unappealable judgment and article 170-A of the Brazilian Tax Code matter. Prospective suspension, recognition of an overpayment and administrative offsetting are distinct legal effects.

Is the LC 224 claim a guaranteed win?

No. A relevant favorable TRF4 ruling exists, but so do adverse appellate judgments and reversed injunctions. Neither the STF nor the TRF4 test case had reached the merits by the cut-off. An entity-level decision must account for amount, evidence, forum, cash impact and risk.

Back to Tax Litigation

TECHNICAL AUTHORSHIP

TaxUp Tax Practice

Brazilian Tax Law

Content produced by the TaxUp technical team and reviewed by a senior consultant before publication. Meet the firm →

Bring this analysis to your company’s case

30 minutes with a senior consultant. We map your specific tax scenario and point out the technical path forward — no obligation.

Book a diagnostic