Benefícios tributários valem a pena? Um estudo de formulação de políticas públicas

Abstract

The object of this article are laws approved between October 5, 1988 and January 1, 2009, that awarded tax benefits to entrepreneurs, related to three taxes which fund social actions of the Brazilian federal government: PIS, COFINS and CSLL. The objective is to analyze if the formulation of these laws was marked by a concern with assuring the transparency, efficiency, efficacy and effectiveness of the benefits-all of which are fundamental values for good public policies. To this end, we analyzed the origin, the species and the exposition of intent of the legislative proposals that awarded tax benefits to the entrepreneurs, as well as the content of the approved laws. The main conclusion of this article is that the concern with above-mentioned values seems to have been very limited. This is particularly problematic given the ever-growing number of laws that award tax benefits, and the gigantic volume of tax exemptions occasioned by them. The award of tax benefits to entrepreneurs can be characterized as a distributive policy (Lowi, 1964). This type of policy, with concentrated benefits and dispersed costs, tends to provoke intense lobbying of their potential beneficiaries, and a much weaker mobilization-if any-of the payers. This bias in favour of special interests may threaten the public interest. However, this is not an unavoidable threat. Tax benefits can collaborate to produce good economic results, as it happened when they integrated a list of sucessful measures brought about by the Brazilian government to mitigate the internal effects of the international crisis of 2008. Then, the challenge which remains is to face the risks with a proper institutional architecture.