Dados é uma das principais e mais longevas publicações nas ciências sociais no Brasil. Criada em 1966, divulga trabalhos inéditos e inovadores, oriundos de pesquisa acadêmica, de autores brasileiros e estrangeiros. Editada pelo IESP-UERJ, é seu objetivo conciliar o rigor científico e a excelência acadêmica com ênfase no debate público a partir da análise de questões substantivas da sociedade e da política.
Dados vol. 35 n. 3 Rio de Janeiro 1992
Resumo
The paper describes and explores the process behind the institution of the income tax in Brazil. Since by its very nature income tax transfers resources, in both personal and regional terms, the paper examines how the ruling elites, who eventually decided in favor of this fiscal mechanism, viewed the relation between equality and fairness and between centralization and federalism during the 100 years in which they contemplated, debated, and rejected the idea. From Brazil's Independence to 1922, successive objections against taxation of income were raised within the Empire's Council of State, the Constituent Assembly of 1891, and the first Republic's lower house. These objections were grounded in the tax's impertinent, intrusive nature; in its presumption that the wealthy should pay more, therefore receiving unequal treatment; in its effects on the accumulation of wealth and on investment; and in its potential as a disincentive for labor. The paper also examines the reasons behind the eventual decision to collect this tax in 1922 and to include it in the body of the 1934 Constitution. Proponents were mainly those charged with cleaning up Brazil's finances: Jequitinhonha, Afonso Celso, Paranaguá, and Rui Barbosa. Their rationale implied a search for new prescriptions for a balanced budget - a 19th-century imperative, after all - but their reasoning also embraced such concerns as fairness and equity, the solidarity of wealthier sectors vis-à-vis poorer sectors, and the government's responsibility toward a public, common asset. But rather than focusing on the process that actually brought the victory of bureaucratic rationale and transformed the income tax into a tax on labor, the text is concerned with the political culture that justified and made it reasonable for the State to interfere in incomes and in marketplace activities.
O Surgimento do Imposto de Renda: Um Estudo sobre a Relação entre Estado e Mercado no Brasil
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