According to the president, there is tax injustice in Brazil because the richest do not pay taxes on dividends generated by profits in shares or inheritances
Brazil’s president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, reiterated today Friday his commitment to promote the implementation of a minimum tax for millionaires in order to allow the tax exemption of those workers who earn up to 5,000 re renters per month (about $903).
The rich pay proportionally less tax than a worker. So what I want is to make sense of justice, and I think we need to take it away from someone. “For me, this debate does not have to be a hidden debate, it has to be public, people have to know who pays what and how much is paid,” said Lula da Silva in an interview with the O Povo/CBN radio in Fortaleza, state of Ceará (northeast).
According to the president, there is tax injustice in Brazil because the richest do not pay taxes on dividends generated by profits in shares or inheritances.
In this context, he said that in the future the 27.5 per cent tax on registered employees should be eliminated because it considers that wage is not profit.
Can’t you charge 27 or 15 percent to a worker who earns 4,000 reais and let those who receive inheritances not pay. It’s just a matter of justice (…) What we want is to exempt those people up to R$5,000 and in the future exempt more, because in my head the salary is not income. Income is those who live off speculation. That one should pay income tax, he said.
According to the Brazilian press, the Ministry of Finance has a proposal to collect a minimum tax on sources of income that today are not taxed from millionaires between 12 and 15 percent in order to eliminate the income tax of employees up to R$5,000 per month.
This year, the Government established, with the approval of Congress, that anyone who earns up to 2,824 reais (about $497) per month, equivalent to two minimum wages, pays no more income tax.
This article has been translated after first appearing in La Estrella