The Brazilian constitutional paradox: Social rights cum regressive taxation

Abstract

This essay reviews the Brazilian Constitutional paradox, the combination of expansion of social rights cum regressive taxation, by tracing it back to the Constitutionmaking process. This process shows the regressive feature of the Brazilian tax system, which originates in the so-called 1988 Citizen Constitution, not to derive from the absence of a thorough, technically consistent, proposal of progressive taxation. This reinforces the cogency of the political hypothesis: "social expenditure, no problem, provided the taxation is not progressive".