Explaining Brazil #268: Curb your tax reform enthusiasm

Last week, Senator Eduardo Braga presented his draft of a bill to reform Brazil’s tax system.

This latest version includes several changes to the proposal approved by the House in July, and many experts complain that it moves the reform even further away from its original goal of simplifying Brazil’s Byzantine tax code.

This week, we analyze what’s at stake in the tax reform process — and where things stand in Congress.

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Music used in this episode: Complicated Confection by SCOREWIZARDS (ECDNX8LFQB), Background Documentary Voiceover by bdProductions (WB5823D), and Investigation — The Cinematic Piano by 99Instrumentals (S8JZTUA)

In this episode:

• Cedê Silva is a Brasília correspondent at The Brazilian Report.

Background reading:

• Cedê Silva has been following the tax reform’s path through the Senate closely, from its arrival to the submission of Mr. Braga’s draft report.
• A lot of the debate on (and criticism of) Brazil’s tax reform has been centered around how high the value-added tax rate will be. But that discussion misses the point of the reform entirely. Fabiane Ziolla Menezes breaks down the reform draft approved by the House.
• 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, weighed 15 tons, and stood seven-feet high.
• Corporate lobbies worked hard to pump out studies warning of inflation and layoffs in the event the sectors they represented were not given benefits in the tax reform process.

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The post Explaining Brazil #268: Curb your tax reform enthusiasm appeared first on The Brazilian Report.