The recent decree of No. 8,737, of May 3, 2016, authorized the increase in the paternity leave in another 15 days beyond the five already established by law. But what are the impacts of this legislative amendment for companies?

At the beginning, it is highlighted that the rule is not mandatory, being valid only for companies registered in the citizen company program . That is, companies that are not registered in that program are not required to grant the extension of the paternity license to the requesting workers.

The legal text provides that workers from companies adept at citizen company program will be entitled to benefit when they request it up to two business days after childbirth, so that the extension will start on the business day immediately subsequent at the end of the 5th day of the paternity leave. Still, the benefit of extension may not exercise any paid activity during the extension of the paternity license, under penalty of cancellation of the extension and record of absence as a lack of service.

in the same way as maternity leave, the law provides that "the employee will be entitled to their full remuneration", with the possibility that the company deduces the income tax due to the payable salary in the 15 extra expansion days License-paternity.

It is important to clarify that companies from citizen company program created by Decree No. 7,052 of December 23, 2009, can deduct taxes such as the counterpart of 120 days to 180 days of Maternity leave and from 5 to 20 days of paternity leave. The deduction is limited to undertakings which have taxation regime based on "real income" (taxation is calculated on net income for the calculation period). The companies that are taxed based on the "presumed profit" (calculation basis prefixed by legislation, with a specific profit margin that varies according to the activity of the company) and the opposing companies by the "simple national" can not benefit of this deduction.

for adhesion to the citizen company program is necessary to forward the request on the page of the Federal Revenue Secretariat (RFB), upon code obtained on the revenue website, or by a valid digital certificate.