Meirelles denied that his opinion on the income tax reform project has any relationship with his financial condition.
The proposal of the government that increases the taxation of rich taxpayers, with $ 600 thousand annual revenues, should be analyzed to the room of representatives in August.
The idea of the administration of President Luiz Inacio Lula da Silva (PT) is to create a super rich tax, which affect about 140,000 Brazilian taxpayers, to make room to exempt the income tax that earns up to $ 5,000 per month.
According to the government’s proposal, the minimum super -rich tax rate would have grown according to income.
Those who earn about $ 50,000 would pay a rate close to zero. This rate would gradually increase up to 10% – amount charged by those who have an income greater than $ 100,000 per month ($ 1.2 million per year).
The reform proposal was easily approved by the Special Commission of the Chamber of Deputies on July 16 and the expectation must be taken into consideration in the plenary of the Chamber in the coming weeks.
But for the former president of the Central Bank and former Finance Minister Henrique Meirelles, the proposal of a minimum tax rate for Super Rich must be analyzed more carefully.
In an interview with BBC News Brasil, the financial manager said that “widespread increases” for people and high -income companies can compromise the competitiveness of the country.
“This is something that must be looked at with a little care. The exemption to those of the lowest income, [está] Everything OK. The problem is that these increases widespread for people or higher businesses, “he says.
“This can, for example, damage some competitiveness, with the country seen by investors and etc. by an even higher taxation.”
The former minister says that Brazil is one of the countries that tax the most in the world, “especially among the emerging”. “Our tax burden is very high. So, increasing even more, it has some important disadvantages in this aspect of competitiveness,” he says.
Meirelles also claims that countries with a high tax burden, like some in Northern Europe, tax a lot, but “offer many advantages to their inhabitants”.
On the other hand, he says, “they are not the main competitors in international trade”.
“The major competitors in international trade today, in addition to the United States, are China, Vietnam, etc.”, told BBC News Brazil.
Meirelles was president of the Central Bank from 2003 to 2011 (first and according to Governments Lula) and as Minister of Finance of Michel Temer’s government between 2016 and 2018.
He also ran for the presidency for the Brazilian democratic movement (MDB) in the 2018 elections, when he declared a net assets of R $ 377.497 million activities.
To the question from BBC News Brasil on the possibility of the fiscal proposal of the richest who strike him personally, the former minister said he had not examined the case under “this point of view” and said he was not worried.
“I don’t know, I think it may be. At the moment I haven’t even examined from this point of view. But it’s not something that worries me,” he says.
Meirelles also denied that his opinion on the project has any relationship with his financial condition.
The IR reform agenda is an old promise of the Lula administration and was also brought by the president to international forums. Brazil defends in the G20 and in the Brics Global Exerction of Taxation of Super Rich.
The same debate also exists in different countries. But – as in Brazil – there are difficulties in calculating exactly how much tax the rich remuneration, given the confidentiality around these data.
A Brazilian study from 2024 suggests that the richest in Brazil – with a monthly income greater than $ 37 thousand – pay about 14% of taxes. According to the study, this value is similar to what a person with a monthly income of $ 6,000 pays – which would show that the rich are paying the same rate as a person in the middle class.
But even the richest people this would pay lower total rates, below 13%.
The implication is that the taxation in Brazil would be regressive, that is, that the structure of collection of the country’s taxes would be aggravating the inequalities, making the rich even richer in relation to others.
In the United States, an investigation says that some of the richest Americans pay a rate of 15% – but some billionaires, such as Jeff Bezos and Elon Musk, would have paid zero taxes in a few years, taking advantage of the legal violations.
In the United Kingdom, a 2020 study suggests that the British rich pay higher rates than the United States and Brazil. And the rich respond for most of the government’s tax revenues.
Source: Terra
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