Imposto sobre Produtos Industrializados (IPI): seletividade e não - cumulatividade

Abstract

The present study intends to analyze the constitutional regulation of Excise Tax (IPI) selectivity and non-cumulative principle, a tax of Federal competency. Its features reveal an intention to reach fiscal justice for indirect taxation. Because of that, we initially follow the path of interpretation of Tax Law, which is obligatory in our understanding. Afterwards we pass through the Tax Constitutional System, introducing a brief history of IPI and arriving at its Incidence Matrix. A way that led us to selectivity and to the non-cumulative principle. All along this course we tried to demonstrate that, differently from the way they are treated by the Doctrine, those rules are not still. On the contrary, they are intimately interconnected and, due to clarity of understanding, we must investigate the Constitutional route, i.e., we began with selectivity to finally arrive at non-cumulativeness. That indoctrinated attitude (still regulation) derives from the pure and simple acceptance that IPI has replaced the old Tax on Consumption, also of Federal competency. Therefore, we intend to demonstrate that this substitution resulted in a much more restricted competency for the Federal Government, exactly as a consequence of the constitutional regulation of the selective taxation in function of the essentiality of the product. For us, this is new tax in old dressing, and therefore, a new vision opens up