Explaining Brazil #317: The tax reform gridlock

After voting the broad rules of Brazil’s tax reform at the very end of last year, the House approved this year two additional pieces of legislation aiming at giving teeth to the reform and setting the legal framework for the enforcement of the new tax rules and the distribution of revenue among the federal government and states and municipalities.

These bills now sit in the Senate, where they have stalled for weeks — as the congressional calendar was upended due to the 2024 municipal elections in October. The campaign period leaves Brasília somewhat empty, as lawmakers go back to their constituencies to help the candidacies of their allies.

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This episode used music from Uppbeat and Envato. License codes: Fairytales by Daniel Zambo, Aspire by Pryces (B6TUQLVYOWVKY02S), and Private Investigation by AMZA (V9ZG3LD).

In this episode:

• Luís Felipe de Campos is a lawyer with 20+ years of experience with tax efficiency in Brazil. He is a partner at Rolim Goulart Cardoso, a São Paulo law firm.

Background reading:

• A new study shows that Brazil’s wealthiest pay tax rates similar to low-income earners due to systemic loopholes.

• The town of Extrema has attracted big businesses due to favorable tax rules and benefits that will disappear after a landmark reform. So, what of the city will be left behind?

• Tax lawyer Vinícios Leôncio spent more than two decades of his life compiling Brazil’s tax laws into a single book. The finished article had almost 50,000 pages (until last year, an average of 35 new tax rules were written daily in Brazil).

• Corporate lobbies still try to chip away at Brazil’s tax reform. Companies have tried to add items to the tax-free basket of essential goods, remove products from the “sin tax” list, and draft or remove other rules according to their interests

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The post Explaining Brazil #317: The tax reform gridlock appeared first on The Brazilian Report.