About to be voted on, tax reform divides expert opinion

Simplifying the tax system seems like an easy task when it comes to tax reform. But for the approval to be comprehensive and manage to alleviate the high tax burden, simplify the current rules and increase national competitiveness, all of this depends on a broad debate on the fiscal problems that plague the Brazilian federation and the ways to solve them. them. National Treasury Attorney Leandro Felipe Bueno Tierno is concerned about the situation in the municipalities. He believes that many regions may have difficulties in collecting, mainly because, today, the main source of tax resources for municipalities is the so-called ISS — tax on services.

“According to the reform that is in the Chamber, this tax will end up being replaced by the IBS — which is the tax on goods and services. As it will end up being included in this tax, any loss of collection by the municipalities will possibly have to be increased with the increase of other taxes, by the municipalities such as the IPTU”, he assesses.

For tax lawyer Gabriel Campos Lima, one of the main criticisms is the fear of society and the productive sectors that the idea of ​​having a simplification, of improving the tax system, could happen with an increase in the tax burden — mainly for some specific sectors of society.

“So far, the government, as the applicable rates have not yet been defined, their argument is that general taxation, that is, tax collection, will not increase, but that does not mean in practice that a sector will not have higher taxation than that it currently has. And one of the most worrying is the service sector, which moves a large part of the economy and has a large number of formal employees. A tax burden — which is already extremely high — if it were to increase even more, even gradually, during this transition period from 2026 to 2033, this could make many companies unfeasible and increase unemployment and end up attacking society under this argument of simply a simplification of the tax system”, he stresses.

In the opinion of tax lawyer Renato Gomes, however, some tax reform is better than none. He believes that the simplification of taxes can already be considered an advance within what is being proposed. “There was already an idea of ​​carrying out a tax reform, which sought to simplify and combine some taxes in a system that facilitated government inspection, government collection — and, on the other hand, the understanding of the amount paid by the taxpayer and, in this sense, the proposed reform is succeeding in simplifying the previous system”, he points out.

The rapporteur of the text, deputy Aguinaldo Ribeiro (PP-PB), has the support of the president of the Chamber of Deputies, Artur Lira (PP-AL), and ministers of the Lula government to try to reduce the resistance of governors and mayors, in regarding the proposed changes. He believes that many mayors fear the loss of revenue for their municipalities.