There is no point in imposing taxes on the rich if they deprive the poor of education and health

Of course, taking money from the super-rich will not solve the financial issues facing the country. But it is truly nonsense, to put it mildly, for the discussion about the country’s fiscal health to revolve around throwing up the pebbles used to ensure a minimum of dignity for those who have less while ignoring the discussion about taxing those who have more.

Governments must be charged with making rational expenditures, and eliminating expenditures that are unnecessary or favor the classes. However, much of the public discussion deliberately “forgets” that the payroll tax break, a topic that has been in the news for months and is the mother of other quibbles, such as the AKP/Cofins issue, is public spending. Therefore, the tax exemption is a benefit. When it is proposed to cut tax breaks, powerful lobbyists have a heart attack, spend hours watching television, warning of the end of the world, and scowling in disapproval. But when it comes to cutting off those who have less, they smile.

(The rich and their privileged status are vigorously defended by the terrible warriors of foreign capital, members of the working class who do not see themselves that way and will go to great lengths to defend the privileges of billionaires and millionaires.)

Taxing the wealthy could raise about R$292 billion annually – data from 2021. This is what the National Federation of State and District Tax Authorities (Finavisco) and the National Association of Tax Auditors of Federal Revenue in Brazil (Anfip) advocate. Tax Auditors for Democracy (AFD), and the Institute for Fiscal Justice (IJF), among others.

It’s tough. The minister himself at the time Paulo GuedesDuring the Bolsonaro era, he proposed taxing stock dividends. On the other hand, he proposed reducing corporate income tax in order to increase investments. He has been cursed.

As I said here, Brazil is a passenger ship, with compartments of different classes, where the rich have more comfort in their cabins. I am not going into the merits of how we got here, nor am I proposing an immediate revolution whereby the heterogeneous cabins cease to exist. But it is necessary that a minimum of dignity be guaranteed to third class, and that first class pay a ticket that is progressively proportional to its income.