Source: Daily Reporter - SP - 22/07/2009

The Brazilian tax system is recognized as one of the most unfair, costly and irrational in the world. The need for a tax reform is urgent, even a consensus between opposition and situation, however, the way, the content and how it should be done is not supported by the most diverse political parties in the National Congress. While the impasse remains, year by year, the tax burden continues to penalize workers and productive sectors, compromising our international competitiveness and condemning informality a good part of our economy.

Even the worsening of the financial crisis and the end of the CPMF tax collection were not able to stop the rampant escalation of the tax burden in the country. The weight of taxes collected by the Union, States and Municipalities again hit another sad record and reached 35,8 % of GDP. It is worth remembering that at the time of the vote in Congress to end the CPMF, at the end of 2007, the Lula Government and the allied base claimed that the extinction of the tax would compromise the federal tax collection.

The distribution of the cake remains unchanged, the Union gets 70% of the revenues, the states keep 26% and the municipalities 4%. It is not just today that I defend a new Federative Pact, in which the municipality, the first instance of power to be confronted with the basic needs of the population, has a greater participation in the pie, because everything that can be done by the municipality will be better, the resources will be better applied and it is where the citizen participates and charges more.

A study by the Brazilian Institute of Tax Planning (IBTP) reveals details of this perverse system. The Brazilian worked until May 25 just to pay taxes, that is, it took five months or 147 days just to fill the Union's coffers. A simple look at the Impostometer (www.impostometro.com.br) illustrates this irrationality well.

The government collects a lot and spends badly, aside from the waste of the purse consumed by the ethical deviations tolerated by the Lula government. We Brazilians have a first-world collection, while the social counterparts of State responsibility are similar to those of poor African countries.

In the National Congress, the Lula government is back in charge in order to approve its proposal for Tax Reform, led by deputy Sandro Mabel. Member of the Special Committee responsible for examining the proposal in the Federal Chamber, I voted against and remain convinced that the proposal in question is a step backwards, goes against everything that common sense advocates such as greater simplification, rationality, transparency, in addition to increasing already high tax burden, have a pro-Union bias that should further compromise the collection of States and Municipalities, in addition to moving away from the tax models of competing countries in the international market.

Most importantly, at the moment, it is clear that it is an improvised and almost unknown proposal, negotiated in most cases in a non-transparent way, when not hidden, which interferes with two hundred constitutional provisions and would result in an increase in the tax burden, greater public deficit, serious damage to Social Security and employment, so it cannot be voted against and in the midst of a vast world economic crisis. In this debate, I again intend to be guided by caution, from those who know that hasty attitudes can cost the citizen, the taxpayer and Brazil very high.

Deputy Arnaldo Jardim - deputy leader of the PPS in the Federal Chamber