Source: Dourados News - MS - 11/09/2009

In Brazil, tax reform is like carnival: it happens every year, entertains everyone for three days, and when it ends, some return home with a hangover due to the increased tax burden. It was with these words that Professor Mary Elbe Queiroz, president of the Pernambucano Institute of Tax Law (Ipet), opened the IX International Congress on Tax Law in Pernambuco. The event started this Thursday (10/9) in Porto de Galinhas (PE) and ends on Saturday (12/9).

The proposals in progress to simplify the Brazilian tax system - admittedly complex - do not seem to please the greatest specialists in the area. Professor José Souto Maior Borges, one of the most respected names in Tax Law, is quite incredulous not only with this reform, but also with any other. “Every tax reform in Brazil has the essential characteristic of increasing the tax burden,” he says. He believes that this is due to the Brazilian model of reforming, always with a segregationist character, and not a integrationist one, that is, disregarding the relationship between states, municipalities and the Union. For Souto Maior, it is not possible to arrive at a simplification of the system Brazilian tax system with this division of the power to tax between the Union, states and municipalities. The solution is for Brazil to adopt the so-called VAT - Value Added Tax, he says.

Safe details

“Brazil lives in a permanent state of tax reform”, says Souto Maior. For him, the cause of this constant need for change is the characteristic of the Brazilian tax system. While in the United States the system is synthetic, "which we are entitled to envy", in Brazil, the tax system is exhaustive, rigid and detailed, he says. The professor criticizes the details that the Federal Constitution reaches in tax matters. Item 146 of Article XNUMX is a mini tax code, he claims. "I have no doubt that we will be discussing tax reform next year."

Constitutional detailing in tax matters, for tax attorney Roque Antonio Carrazza, however, is one of the strengths of the tax system in Brazil. He believes that, by giving way to the stones of taxes, the Federal Constitution brings legal security to the country. The letter not only says who can tax but also conceptualizes and names the taxes. Directly or indirectly, it states the calculation basis, rate and taxable event. "The state of Pernambuco, for example, can only create ICMS as outlined in the Constitution."

"The biggest tax law in Brazil is the Federal Constitution, not the National Tax Code", he says. For him, this detail is important because the act of taxing goes against two fundamental rights guaranteed in the Constitution: the right to freedom and private property. By demanding taxes, he explains, the State restricts the freedom of the citizen / taxpayer and also takes some of its assets for itself. Due to the hierarchy of legal rules, which guarantees legal security in the country, only the Federal Constitution can say when and how these two fundamental rights will be restricted. A tribute is only worth finding its roots in the Constitution, says Carrazza.

Criticisms and defects aside, the president of the Brazilian Institute of Tax Studies (Ibet) Paulo de Barros Carvalho recognizes that the Brazilian tax system works - and very well, by the way. It is an excellent instrument, with all the gears oiled, for the State to obtain resources and with effective instruments for the taxpayer to defend itself. He recalls that the tax collection, although it has stopped now, was rising in a crescent worthy of being always mentioned. However, remember, saying that the tax system works well is not the same as saying that it works for good. Hence the importance of discussion in academic circles for the taxpayer to sign his constitutional right.