The main purpose of this note is to estimate the tax burden of 12 commodities in Brazil. We collect data of tax rate changes on value added tax (VAT) and tax inclusive prices. Based on this data, econometric methodology is applied based on Carbonnier (2007) to the Brazilian market. Unbalanced panel data includes information about 7 commodities from basic basket food in 16 cities and about 5 other commodities in 11 cities from July 1994 to June 2008. Estimated results suggest that tax burden on consumer relies on between 7% and 75% to these commodities and the firms hold a share of the tax burden on VAT. These findings suggest that sales tax rate changes affect commodities prices in different magnitudes (in this case they are under-shifted).
