ABSTRACT
This essay reviews the Brazilian Constitutional paradox, the combination of expansion of social rights cum regressive taxation, by tracing it back to the Constitution-making process. This process shows the regressive feature of the Brazilian tax system, which originates in the so-called 1988 Citizen Constitution, not to derive from the absence of a thorough, technically consistent, proposal of progressive taxation. This reinforces the cogency of the political hypothesis: “social expenditure, no problem, provided the taxation is not progressive”.
KEYWORDS:
Brazilian 1988 Constitution; constitutional paradox; progressive taxation