Carnival: Cachaça and caipirinha are tax champions – 02/08/2023 – Market

Cachaça, caipirinha and draft beer are the products with the highest tax burden at Carnival, according to the Taxometer of ACSP (Commercial Association of São Paulo). Taxes can exceed 80%.

The association’s survey shows that, of the total value of cachaça, 81.9% are taxes. Caipirinha has 76.7%, and draft beer, 62.2%. The list contains 26 items, including other alcoholic beverages, water, condoms, airline tickets and carnival props.

Soda, party props and beer also have a good part of their final price made up of taxes. In these cases, of the total, more than 40% are tax burden.

See the taxes on Carnival 2023 products

Product	Tax (in %)
Liquor	81.9
caipirinha	76.7
Draft beer	62.2
Soda can)	46.5
Hawaiian necklace	46
spray foam	45.9
Soda (bottle)	44.6
plastic mask	43.9
confetti/streamer	43.8
Sunglasses	44.2
craft beer	42.7
Canned beer)	42.7
Beer (bottle)	42.7
sequin mask	42.7
sequin bikini	42.2
Sunscreen	41.7
cavaquinho	38.3
Tambourine	37.8
Fantasy	36.41
Bikini	34.1
Mineral water	31.5
Hotel accommodation	29.6
Airfare	22.3
Condom	18.8

According to Marcel Solimeo, an economist at ACSP, the reason why some Carnival items have high taxes is because they are considered superfluous. “Some products are considered superfluous and therefore have high taxation.” Alcoholic beverages are also items that, by themselves, already have a higher tax burden, according to specific legislation.

Taxes charged on airline tickets are among the lowest on this year’s list put together by the association, second only to condoms, but Solimeo warns of the fact that traveling by plane is more expensive. Among the reasons is the increase in aviation fuel.

“People were prevented from traveling for two years and, even with the price of airline tickets at heights, they will not fail to take advantage of the holiday to enjoy the revelry”, says the economist.

According to ACSP, air tickets had high taxation between 2019 and 2023. In that year, the percentage of taxes corresponded to 9.25%. Now it’s at 22%.

impostometer

From January 1 of this year until this Wednesday (8), Brazilians have already paid more than R$378 billion in taxes. In 2022, the value reached almost R$ 3 trillion, according to the ACSP tax meter. The panel with the values ​​is installed in the central region of São Paulo.

Taxes correspond to the amount collected by federal, state and municipal governments and include fees, contributions, fines, interest and monetary correction. In 2021, the panel recorded approximately BRL 2.6 trillion in taxes. The increase between 2021 and 2022 was 11.5%. On average, per year, Brazilians work more than 100 days to pay taxes.

Federal government prepares tax reform

One of the main focuses of the economic area of ​​the new government is to approve a tax reform. The intention is to simplify taxes and make taxation fairer. There are old bills in the House and Senate that deal with the subject, but that have not advanced.

The legislation model is still being debated at the Ministry of Finance, but the trend is to follow the line of one of the proposals already in progress in Congress, which has been debated since the previous PT administrations.