The Minister of Finance, Fernando Haddad, said this Tuesday (14) that the so-called BBB taxation, which taxes banks, income from financial investments and sports betting, “is only unfair in the minds of people who are uninformed about what is happening in Brazil”.
“Without wanting to malign any economic activity that has legal protection. That’s not what this is about. They are regulated activities. But we have to ensure that these activities correspond, in relation to taxation, with what is the standard of the Brazilian economy”, he assessed.
During a public hearing at the Senate’s Economic Affairs Committee (CAE), Haddad recalled that no one thinks it is unfair to overtax cigarettes or alcoholic beverages and that “sectors that produce very negative externalities for society” are overtaxed throughout the world.
“Brazil is even shy about overtaxing. In certain countries, it is almost unaffordable for you to buy an alcoholic drink”, he said, citing Scandinavia as an example. “You will pay dearly because every citizen there understands that these activities need to have another type of regulation.”
“It’s the correct way to combat smoking, alcoholism, psychological dependence. Not necessarily prohibit it because, sometimes, there are things that are difficult to prohibit. Although, in the case of betswe have technology today so that, if this struggle continues, we can enter into a firmer clash with the sector”, he added.
For the minister, bets, for example, have to make some type of contribution to what he called the side effects of entertainment that can generate addiction. “It’s not going to an amusement park or a show. It is another type of entertainment, which generates dependence, it has to be treated in this way”.
“It’s not demonizing. It’s giving the thing a name. Without any kind of difficulty”, he concluded.
