A tax code so big, it needs its own hotel room

Brazil, especially according to foreigners, is surrounded by clichés. But the ones you know, like the capirinha, the samba, and “soccer” (excuse me, football!), are not nearly as quintessentially Brazilian as its true defining characteristic: its bonkers tax rules.

By the time it takes Brazilians to eat their breakfast, another tax rule is created. An average of 35 new ordinances per day, constantly being added to a seemingly endless list.

Brazilian tax lawyer Vinícios Leôncio spent more than two decades of his life compiling a book of the country’s tax laws. When he was finished, the work was a comically 50,000 page monster, weighing 15 tons, and which is on display in a hotel room in Minas Gerais.

What’s worse, by the time he finished it, it was already out of date. 

According to World Bank statistics, no nation in the world spends more time trying to comply with tax legislation than Brazil. And fellow South American countries Bolivia, Venezuela, and Ecuador are also in that top ten list. 

The heart of Brazil’s problem is not just the number of laws, but the fact that many of them have not been updated in decades. Now, Brazilians are counting on a recently approved tax reform that could magically shorten Mr. Leôncio’s tome. He suggests that the overhauled rules would cut the book by 95 percent.

Read more here, and check out the full creation of this cartoon on The Brazilian Report’s TikTok account!  

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• #taxReform