The "SAT" contribution was created by Law no. 8,212/91
with the scope of funding the social assistance related to events
such as illnesses, permanent injury and death resulted from labor
accidents.
In summary, Law no. 8,212/1991 sets forth SAT tax rates of 1%,
2% or 3%, depending on the risk degree of the main activity of the
legal entity (the risk degree is classified as low, medium or
high).
Since the creation of SAT, the Government has emitted Decrees to
state what kind of activity deserves to pay 1%, 2% or 3% and the
last Decree related to it was emitted in 2009 (Decree 6957),
stating new rates for the Brazilian Companies.
Successive regulations regarding Law no. 8,212/1991 did not
determine a specific concept to the expression "main activity
of the legal entity", in view of that many decrees were issued
over the time with different interpretation about the concept of
"main activity of a legal entity.
