Note
- The date of this section was last updated on 05/05/2010
Collection of federal taxes is a competence of the Federal Union, as well as their devising and enactment.
As a rule, the Federal Union charges the following taxes in Brazil:
The ICMS – Value added tax over circulation of goods, service rendering, inter-state and inter-municipal transportation, and communication is a state tax, that is, only the Brazilian State Governments are competent to institute it, and the tax brackets and norms are not uniform, varying from state to state. There are other State taxes, but the ICMS is the most significant one.
The municipalities and the Federal District are competent to institute the following taxes:
a) Urban property tax (IPTU);
b) Tax over transfer of real estate properties (ITBI);
c) Tax on services of any kind (ISS-QN).
The Federal Union institutes social contributions for funding its social security.
It is the registration of the corporations before the Federal Revenue, and it identifies each corporation (firm/company/civil society, mercantile society or corporation) existing in the country. No corporation is allowed to function without the CNPJ number.
The CIC (Cartão de Identificação do Contribuinte), taxpayer’s identity card, is the customized card (a type of identity card) issued by the Ministry of Treasury with the CPF number for individuals and with the CNPJ number for corporations.
It is a contribution for funding social security. It is a tax collected by the Federal Union as accrued from the gross sales of the corporations, meant to assist social programs of the Federal Government.
It is a council that congregates all the State Treasury Secretaries, the Ministers of Treasury and of Planning, and other federal authorities of the economic area.
The following contributions are considered parafiscal: FGTS, Economic contributions and fees.
Generally, all individuals and corporations who pay taxes (in generic sense) to the government, whether it is for the Federal Union, for the States or for the Municipalities and/or for the Federal District. The National Tax code, on article 121, paragraph 1, item I, defines as Taxpayer one who “is a passive subject of a principal obligation… when in personal and direct relationship with the situation that constitutes the respective taxable event."
It is a provisional contribution on financial operations or transfer of values and credits and rights of financial nature.
It is a social contribution on the net profit accrued. It is an extra federal taxation over the net profit of the companies or over their gross sales (in case of companies that choose the presumed profit method) of the corporations.
It is a tax incentive system for the exporters. It consists basically of the suspension, exemption or refunding of taxes levied upon import of inputs used for product upgrading in Brazil and later export.
It is a system of lawful systems whose purpose is to decrease the amount of payable taxes. It should not be confused with tax evasion (or dodging), for the tax avoidance is an exclusive use of lawful means, as admitted by the legislation. For example: the choice between presumed or real profit accrual.
It is the general denominations for all expenses carried out by companies, mandatorily or not, in benefit of its employees and their relatives, directly or indirectly, including those meant to fund social security under responsibility of the Public authorities and other social contributions. For example: FGTS on payrolls.
It is a severance fund composed of compulsory contributions by the employer over the payrolls, deposited in Caixa Econômica Federal in a specific account of the employee. Recovery of the fund is admissible in certain situations, such as dismissal without a just cause.
The Surveillance and Collection Administration and Development Fund, FUNDAF, is a fund to which part of the fines levied against taxpayers for tax irregularities related to taxes managed by the Federal Revenue Bureau are allocated. Its resources are prioritarily meant to the restructuring of the collecting/surveillance systems of the mentioned bureau, including payment of Variable Additional Retribution to the Tax Auditors and Technicians of the National Treasury, for motivation.
It is a value added tax related to the circulation of goods, rendering of services of interstate and intermunicipal transportation, and communication, also called the goods and services circulation tax. It is a non-cumulative state tax, and a thorough source of revenue for the States and Federal District.
In accordance with the National Tax Code, “a tax is the levy whose obligation’s generating event is an independent situation of any specific activity of the state, related to a taxpayer". In other words, it is a tribute paid, compulsorily, by individuals and corporations to meet part of the tax revenue needs of the public authorities (federal, state and municipal), so as to assure the functionality of the bureaucracy, social services to the population and investments in essential civil works.
It is any tax or levy that is levied in all intermediate stages of the productive and/or trading process of a certain product, including the very taxes/levies paid earlier in the process, from the origin to the final consumer, affecting the composition of its cost and therefore the definition of its sale price.
IT is a levy (tax, fee, betterment or parafiscal contribution, charges/levy fees, etc.) that depends on the will or provisions (filling-out forms, slips, statements, DARF, etc.) of the taxpayer or of the responsible party to be paid or collected into the public treasury, such as the IPI, ICMS, ISS, IPTU, ITR, IR, INSS, FGTS etc.
It’s the same as cumulative tax.
It is a levy not explicit in the receipt, invoice or fiscal document, whose value, underlying the product’s final price, is passed on to the purchaser. For example: the direct tax paid in a telephone or electric power bill is transformed into an indirect tax when it is added to the final price of the product or service.
What is a non-cumulative tax?
It is a tax or levy that is not levied on an amount that includes the taxes or levies paid in the previous stages of the process. For example, the IPI and the ICMS.
It is a tax whose brackets increase or decrease in the same proportion as the amounts levied. An example of this type of tax is the Personal Income Tax, whose brackets vary from 15% to 27.5%, according to one’s gross income.
It is a tax whose bracket is constant (equal/uniform/fixed), and whose outcome only increases in the same proportion as the levied amount. It is a levy of unchangeable bracket, whatever the taxable amount or the assessable basis is.
It is a tax whose brackets decrease in the same proportion as the levied amounts increase.
It is a tax that is levied only on certain products. In the current tax system, the taxes levied on alcoholic beverages, tobacco, perfumes/cosmetics, and automobiles, among others, are selective, once their brackets are differentiated. In fact, in the tax system in force, the tax selectivity has practically become a rule instead of an exception.
In Brazil, the Federal Constitution in conjunction with the Consolidation of Labor Laws (CLT - Consolidação das Leis do Trabalho) regulates the relations in the labor sphere.
It is a consolidation of all labor laws in force, composed of a set of regulations existing at the time of its enactment, and regulating matters related to:
As a general rule, the labor rights are as follows:
Yes. There are Collective Agreements and Conventions, jurisprudential statements of the superior Labor court, standards enacted by the Ministry of Labor, and some conventions of the International Labor Organization.
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