Tributação do lixo reciclado: uma análise das consequências socioeconômicas e fiscais da incidência do IPI sobre a reciclagem

Abstract

The principle of sustainable development has as content the maintainance of the vital basis of the (re) production of men and his activities, ensuring a harmonious relationship between him and the nature. In this context, garbage recycling emerges as an alternative source of environmental protection. The State, in its turn, with the purpose of achieving the constitutional principles regarding the guarantee of an ecologically balanced environment and free enterprise, should encourage activities such as recycling, which represent the search for a balance between development and preservation of the environment. In order to achieve a certain end, the State uses economicfinancial instruments such as taxes, coated with extrafiscal function, to influence the behavior of economic entities and to encourage positive initiatives for the environment, discouraging, on the other hand, harmful ones to the alluded common good. It is important to clarify that it is aimed to examine whether, in fact, the State has acted in the exercise of the constitutional protection of the environment, including different treatment according to the environmental impact of products and services. It should be noted, though, that there is currently a line of doctrine that defends the incorrectness of applying ISS (a Brazilian tax on services of any kind) on recycled garbage, under the argument that it is not a service, but, actually, a product. Being an industrialization activity, recycling entails the application of IPI (another Brazilian tax on industrialized products), concerning the operations related to the production of goods, which has, as generating factor, an obligation to give. In turn, provision of service, involving an obligation to do, would bring the incidence of ISS. Indeed, one must check the real meaning of the concept, in Tax Law, of service and product, in order to clarify the proper application of taxes which the recycled garbage must be submitted to. Thus, after the comparison between the two mentioned taxes, the legal and economic consequences of the application of IPI in garbage recycling must be analyzed, especially due to the application of the principle of non-cumulativeness regarding IPI. Finally, it is emphasized that it will be applied the hermeneutic-deductive method, since the study leads to conclusions based on theoretical assumptions indicated by literature and jurisprudence.