O impacto distributivo do imposto de renda sobre a desigualdade de renda das famílias

Abstract

This article estimates the distributive impact of the individual income tax, which is defined as the reduction of income inequality among families as measured by Gini coefficients before and after income tax. Microdata from the PNAD are used to simulate income tax criteria, because these criteria depend on income and other characteristics of persons within the family. Tax rates and exemptions referring to dependents had a very mild distributive impact along the entire period 1981-1999, reducing by at most 5.2% the Gini coefficient relative to gross income. The simulation for 1999, which takes into account all authorized exemptions and deductions, make clear their regressive character, since they practically cancel out the total distributive impact of the income tax. The conclusions are twofold. On the one hand, since the distributive impact of the income tax is negligible, the importance of that tax remains solely as a source of revenue. On the other hand, direct income transfers to families at the bottom of the income distribution are much more efficient than income tax in reducing inequality.