A study organized by Instituto Escolhas, with the participation of GPP researchers, pointed out the need to review the way in which the ITR (Rural Territorial Tax) is charged. The country could raise BRL 5.8 billion just by updating the declared market value of properties. This amount is R$ 4.3 billion higher than the amount currently collected. If, together with this, a new table is adopted to measure the productive capacity of livestock, the collection could reach R$ 14.3 billion.
With the six initiatives proposed in the study, updating the ITR could contribute BRL 16.8 billion to the public coffers – BRL 15.3 billion more than the tax collected in 2018. “Updating the ITR collection parameters can be a significant contribution for Brazil to settle its accounts”, say the researchers.
The ITR, in addition to being a source of State revenue, is proposed as a tool for regulating land use in Brazil, since it establishes progressive charges according to the degree of productivity of each rural property. In this way, by charging less from those who produce more, it would discourage the maintenance of unproductive properties.
However, the ITR has failed in its purpose. Faced with this finding, an update of the rural tax collection parameters was proposed. “In the current model, the ITR fails in every dimension it was designed for. It is irrelevant as a collection tool and clearly ineffective in its objective of inducing productive land occupation. To make matters worse, there is a clear inconsistency between the ITR rules and environmental legislation”, says the research.
Among the causes of the current failure are the anachronism of a tax whose principles were conceived in the 1960s, in a time before current concerns of balance between production and environmental conservation; and also the anachrony of the livestock productivity measurement parameters, for example, which have not been updated since 1980. In addition, the ITR is collected based on the self-declaration of the value of the properties, which tends to be depreciated and, consequently, the tax also.