O imposto sobre a renda à luz da constituição

Abstract

The present doctoral thesis offers, as its objective, the analysis of regulatory norms over the taxation of income and all other sources of revenue as they pertain to legislative statutes and their relation to the 1988 Brazilian Constitution. The context of the research herein contained is the legal system as a whole, understood as the system of legal norms organized hierarchically with the Constitution at its apex. Following a brief historical survey, presenting the context surrounding income tax in both Brazil and around the globe, the focus settles on Brazil‟s own legal framework, employing the norms established by the Constitution itself as a basis for outlining the concept of “income” as well as “all other sources of revenue” and affirming an understanding of the principles which, in both general and specific terms, guide the taxation of Brazilian income. From that, a more specific analysis follows, also within the scope of the legal system, examining each layer of the process as it descends from the constitutional realm to that of ordinary legislation as they regulate personal income tax and corporate income tax, filling in, by means of semantical content, the entire pattern rule for tax incidence. Such an examination will make it possible to turn, again, to the Supreme Law of the Land and compare norms introduced by ordinary legislation with those laid down by the Constitution. In this manner, we intend to demonstrate, in a final analysis, how ordinary legislation regarding to the taxation of “income” and “all other sources of revenue” measures up, in practical terms, against the Constitution