Vehicular air pollution and environmental tax law in Brazil: proposed tax restructuring for sustainable development

This work presents a restructuring of taxes in the automotive sector in Brazil in order to foster sustainable development. Personal vehicles, trucks or buses emit gases that contribute to global warming and cause human health problems. There are policies in Brazil to reduce the emission of air pollutants from vehicles; however, these neither punish the polluter nor provide for damage compensation. The Tax Law, with the Constitutional Polluter Pays Principle, is an efficient instrument for State intervention in the economy. The work compared environmental and economic views regarding fuel and both personal and public vehicles. We estimated the environmental benefits of recycling vehicles in use more than 10 years, taking into consideration pollution engendered in the manufacture of a new vehicle. Finally, we propose to unify vehicular taxation when the vehicle is acquired, by ending the ICMS and PIS / COFINS taxes on fuels and instead taxing CIDE-fuels, without reducing overall collection by the Brazilian government. The ensuing revenue would be used for repairing environmental damages. We have also made suggestions for the improvement of public policies to control emissions of atmospheric pollutants.