The small business, the “Simples Nacional” and the problem of the ICMS credits

Abstract

From the 1970s, the importance of small business – SB – started to be increasingly recognized, mainly because of its role in generating employment. Among the measures taken by the Brazilian government to encourage and promote the SB, stands out the Simples Nacional law which included ICMS and ISS between taxes covered by the special tax regime. There are, however, many companies in condition to be in the Simples Nacional, but do not opt for this system, since this option would bring problems related to ICMS credits. The objective of this study is to identify and analyze the factors that lead these companies to opt for a system of paying taxes that would not be, in principle, favorable to them, in order to contribute to the discussion on the Simples Nacional and public policy incentives to SB. This is an exploratory qualitative research that used the method of case study. The results show that the Simples Nacional simply does not work for companies whose customers are large retail companies, because they are forced by the market not to make the option for the Simples system. Thus, the study concluded that, for certain sectors such as that of the company studied, the Simples Nacional did not result in any advantage for the SB and caused a disadvantage: the law that instituted it revoked the Simples Federal and the SB can no longer pay federal taxes in an unified way.

Small Business; Simples Nacional; public policy; evaluation of public policy; value added tax