Tax over movement of goods and socio-environmental service: institutional incentives and environmental legislation in Brazil

Abstract

The sustainable growth of Brazilian municipalities has turned the sustainability of its municipalities from a desirable aspect into a requirement for the country’s development, taking into consideration the Brazilian growth boom in the recent years. Nevertheless, the responsibility for the supervision and environmental regulation of growth and production has been increasingly transferred to local actors. In this scenario, the tax over movement of goods and services (Imposto sobre Circulação de Mercadoria e Serviço - ICMS) stands as one of the main mechanisms of regulation and planning of the productive processes at the local level. This paper examines the legal and institutional aspects of this initiative, as well as comparatively outlines the differences between state legislations. It also analyses the historical path of their legal development. Furthermore, particularly the research tried to outline a national panoramic view of how different conceptions of sustainability were put into operation by the state legislations, creating different structures of institutional incentives.