As guerras fiscais do ICMS em sua relação com a democracia e com os direitos humanos: uma contribuição da sociologia fiscal a partir da trajetória histórica das assimetrias regionais no Brasil

Abstract

This paper is the result of a master’s level study conducted in the Interdisciplinary Post-Graduation Program on Human Rights of the Universidade Federal de Goiás and its main object of research is the relationship between the ICMS (Brazil’s value-added tax on sales and services) tax wars, human rights, and democracy in Brazil. It has assumed that, in the Brazilian experience, the best way to approach these three elements is through the historical trajectory of social disparities, especially regional asymmetries. Thus, identifying tax and political causes to such regional inequalities has become a secondary objective. Based on the perception that fiscal competitions in the federative environment may generate negative externalities in relation to the federated unit(s) that have legitimized them, the basic initial hypothesis was that of a (in)compatibility of this phenomenon with the coexistence of decision-making levels of a democratic federalism. Seeking to add the classical bibliography on the Federal State and criticisms of the Brazilian federalism to contemporary literature on human rights, Fiscal Sociology was initially proposed as the appropriate baseline. Subsequently, in the context of the Brazilian history, the study set aside the apparent crash of popular sovereignty principles and human rights, which are, in fact, interdependent, as explained by Jürgen Habermas, since the apparent contradiction occurs due to concepts that do not convey the true values of democracy or human rights. The safest conclusion has been that a legal or even mathematical analysis of the validity of tax competitions, which would condemn them prima face, is insufficient when one intends to place them in a scenario which respects the human rights and democracy. However, even considered in the light of such values, there is evidence that this form of continuation of politics, by warlike means, is an example of how private economic interests prevail over democratic and humanistic actions.