Imposto inflacionário e dívida pública: período pós - Plano Real

Abstract

One of the essential conditions for the success of any stabilization plan is the government's capability to make compatible their expenses with their incomes, taking into account the loss in revenue from the inflation tax, in such way as not to resort to issuing currency to defray expenditure in excess in relation to revenues. One of the main tools to compensate the reduction of the inflation tax revenues is the primary surplus. The economic team of Real (Brazilian currency) was fully aware of this aspect. So why the national debt has increased so much after the Real Plan (Brazilian economic plan), despite such plan's success in lowering inflation rates? This paper aims to demonstrate, by means of bibliographic research, to demonstrate the importance of the drastic decrease in the inflation tax revenues contributing to the debt increase. Not only this, but also how the economic policies of the country were conducted after the implementation of Real, especially regarding the interest rate, often pointed out as one of the main reasons for the public debt growth at that time. But one should not forget that there were other elements that contributed the growth of public debt besides the decreased revenues from the inflation tax and the high interest rates applied during this period. As an example, we can point out the refinancing of debts from states and municipalities, The Program for Strengthening Federal Financial Institutions (read in Portuguese: PROEF) and the acknowledgement of debts from previous governments that were not accounted, known as contingent liabilities or "skeletons in the closet". In fact, 85% of the variation in debt for this period was the result of these three factors, which, beyond the expectation that it will not happen again in the future has nothing to do with economic policy.