Author: Marcos Cintra

Source: Diário da Manhã - GO, 09/07/2009

Alongside the idea of ​​creating a single tax on financial transactions in Brazil, at a seminar held in Argentina in late 1989, economist at the University of Wisconsin Edgard L. Feige presented a study entitled “Taxing All Transactions: The Automated Payment Transaction Tax System”. As in Brazil, the proposal to create a financial transaction tax advocated by Professor Feige, an expert in the informal economy and who has been conducting research on the subject in several countries for more than 20 years, has also aroused interest in the United States.

Feige's studies on informality in several countries around the world have pointed out the enormous harms that the informal economy and tax evasion have been causing. Professor Feige concluded that taxing banking transactions can mitigate the distortions caused by the underground economy, and describes the proposal as a tax system for the 21st century.

Feige's proposal gave rise to a movement to publicize the North American “single tax”. The details of the Automated Payment Transaction (APT) and other information are available on the website www.apttax.com.

Tax simplification came to prominence in the United States some time ago when millionaire Steve Forbes, then a candidate for the presidency of that country, proposed a single 17% tax on wages. The idea of ​​the “flat-tax” gained adherents, and in 2003, five projects following this simplifying line were presented to the North American Congress.

In Germany too, simplification has gained prominence during the last elections. A variant of the Single Tax thesis, defended by Professor Paul Kirchhof, from the University of Heidelberg, one of the gurus in public finance in that country, was placed at the center of the debates by the then candidate and today Chancellor Angela Merkel. The simplifying wave in various corners of the world is an important step, as can be seen from tax reforms in several Eastern European countries and Russia.

In Brazil, the proposal for the Single Tax has brought together an increasing number of supporters since the late 1980s. This project was unanimously approved in 2002 by the Congressional Special Tax Reform Commission, and is ready to be voted on by the Plenary of the Chamber of Deputies. This is PEC 474/01, which provides for the replacement of federal taxes - Income Tax, Cofins, IPI, employers' Social Security, IOF, Education Salary, “S” System and ITR - for just one, which would have a rate of 2,07 , XNUMX% on debits and credits for each entry in bank current accounts.

The simplification brought about by the unification of taxes is an old longing of economists and a recent search in several economies around the planet. Brazil has already proved, with the experience of the CPMF, that the most appropriate tax base for the Single Tax is financial movement, and the project that is in Congress could be the starting point for the resumption of debates on tax reform.

Marcos Cintra holds a PhD in Economics from Harvard University (USA), full professor and vice president of Fundação Getulio Vargas