"The Tax War and economic competitiveness: when ICMS tax incentives lead the market to organize itself in an unbalanced way".
ICMS. Tax war. Tax breaks. Market. Imbalance.
The work addresses the problem of the Tax War from the perspective of economic uncompetitiveness, aiming to demonstrate that the tax incentives (lato sensu) of the ICMS, at first, foment a mismatch in the competitive organization of the market, contributing to the favoring of certain sectors or economic agents to the detriment of others. Secondarily, the research mentions other harmful effects of this practice, such as the weakening of local public finances to the detriment of the equity of the tax system. In the first part, we emphasize the role of the State as a driver of economic activity. A position that obliges him, aware of his functions as manager of the public treasury, to rationalize public spending choices in the way that best harmonizes with a contemporary policy of social development. In the second part of the study, we try to identify the political, economic and tax arrangements in the legal structure of the Brazilian State that have fueled the ICMS tax war, leading to the imbalances highlighted throughout the work. In the last part, we seek the vision of the idealizers of tax systems, possibly more in line with the desired market efficiency, combined with concern for tax equity. The intention of this work is to insist on a still pending question of economic and tax policy in the country, aware that the problems of taxation in Brazil are dragging on, maintaining a framework of social injustice and fostering a growing dependence on state stimuli.