Abstract
This paper aims at analyzing the Brazilian tax reform issue from a Law and Development perspective. The goal is to explain the reasons why, despite the existence of apparent consensus on the need for a tax reform in the country, up to now the Brazilian tax system has not suffered structural changes. We have used domestic and foreign texts regarding tax policy and tax reform, as well as texts drafted by scholars who analyze the relation between Law and Development. We point out stakeholders, obstacles and results of previous attempts to reform the Brazilian tax system. Apparently, up to the moment the tax reform issue has been addressed as being purely technical, while the difficulties for implementing a tax reform may be more closely related to political disagreements. The Law and Development lessons suggest that broad and radical reforms tend to fail. In this context, we demonstrate the institutional shackles that hinder the occurrence of a profound restructuring of the Brazilian tax system and suggest, not exhaustively, incremental alternative strategies that may be helpful in future attempts to reform the Brazilian tax system.
Keywords
Tax Reform; Law and Development