Escolhas’ Platform #QUANTOÉ? ITR represents a decisive step to update the rural tax

Tool consolidates information of all cities of the country and simulates effects of the use of more technical parameters in the collection of ITR

By Iuri Dantas

Enhance the awareness of the cities of the tax and the challenges to a more effective and fair charge. Thinking on such purposes, Instituto Escolhas on an interactive platform made available online information about the collection of the Rural Property Tax and its potential of increase of collection per city.  Through #QUANTOÉ? the society may get aware of values and better discuss how to improve ITR.

“We already have good examples of cities that may increase their collection and the platform serves to the mayor and to the local population to look at and know how much they could collect for more in their city”, explains Jaqueline Ferreira, Project manager of Instituto Escolhas.

In an interactive map, any person checks the rural skills of the city, the number of rural properties, how many are exempt or immune, and how much the city collected with such charge. The platform #QUANTOÉ Imposto Territorial Rural (Rural Property Tax)also shows the potential of increase in the collection upon using for the calculation values of the land closer to market values, which in some cases achieve 300%.

Technically called Value of Bare Land (VTN), the reference for the price of the rural property is declared by the real estate owner, but should reflect the market value of the lands.

To the whole country, the estimate indicates an increase of collection R$ 4.3 billion higher than the value of 2018. In that year, the five million rural properties of the country contributed with R$ 1.5 billion of ITR, a value that is equivalent to what some neighborhoods of São Paulo collect on their urban properties, as IPTU.

“We would like to have an effective land tax, which promotes tax justice, and which promotes a more sustainable development, which are the extrafiscal reasons of such tax”, affirms Jaqueline Ferreira.

Escolhas’ study, “Rural Property Tax: tax justice and fiscal incentives”, reveals that the collection of ITR may increase up to R$ 16.8 billion a year with all suggested changes. The study was coordinated by Jaqueline Ferreira, Sergio Leitão, and Natalia Nunes Ferreira Batista, and produced by Bernard Appy, Carlos Mares, and GeoLab/GPP (USP/Esalq)/Entropix Engenharia team: Alberto Barretto, Arthur Nicolaus Fendrich, Carlos Mário Guedes de Guedes, Gerd Sparovek, Rodrigo Fernando Maule, Roger Augusto de Camargo, Sergio Paganini Martins.

“The fact is that ITR in Brazil, when you will get a declaration made by the taxpayer, VTN almost always is understated, and the productivity often is overestimated”, tells the economist Bernard Appy. According to him, such scenario “makes that the collection of the tax is very low and that the purpose thereof of stimulating the productive use of land is not achieved.”

ITR is a federal tax and many city halls only stay with half of the collection, since the Federal Revenue Service takes care of the inspection of the tax. To receive 100%, the Finance offices need to enter into an agreement with the Federal Revenue Service to undertake such function of collection and inspection of the tax, and parameters on the value of land in the city to serve as base on the ITR return by the taxpayers.

Nevertheless, only 1,300 cities executed the agreement with the Federal Revenue Service. The remaining continues with 50% of the collection of ITR. To increase such number and speed up the improvement in the collection of the tax, the Federal Revenue Service last month created a group specialist in ITR that will work from Uberlândia (MG), tells the Inspection general coordinator, Altemir Linhares de Melo.

“There are two biases we pursue, to enhance the number of cities under agreement, and to qualify and prepare such mates, such municipal agents in such situation”, affirmed he. “The Federal Revenue Service created a national team, with some dozens of fiscal auditors allocated in such team, and this group is and will carry out the inspection of the cities not under agreement, will make the management of the agreements.”

ESCOLHAS PLATFORMS

It is the fifth platform released by Escolhas with the purpose of allowing that the Web surfers get aware of details of Escolhas’ studies, interacting with their content in an intuitive manner, and generating the results according to their demand. The tool offers free download of data through graphs, maps, and tables.

#Quantoé? Gerar Energia (Generating Power) allows to select what sources of power Brazil shall invest in to meet its additional demand of electric power until 2025.

#Quanto é? Morar Longe (Living far) enables to know the monetary and non-monetary costs associated to each area of the Metropolitan Region of São Paulo (RMSP).

#Quantoé?Plantar Floresta (Planting a Forest) with the purpose of helping and estimating the required value to recover the forest area in the Brazilian rural properties, with or without the obtainment of the economical return.

Desmatamento Zero (Zero Deforestation) – Shows the possible social-economic impacts of finishing the deforestation in Brazil. The analysis considered three scenarios for the end of the deforestation until 2030 to Amazon, Cerrado, and Atlantic Rainforest biomes.

 

ITR was theme of Escolhas webinar

“How is the Rural Property Tax able to help the cities to improve their finances at times of crisis?” was the theme of the webinar held by Instituto Escolhas last June 25. With the presence of specialists and municipal administrators, the online seminar discussed the situation of ITR in the country today, the implementation of the agreements between city and the Federal Revenue Service and its challenges, the potential of collection, and the limits of the city’s role.

Further read: Municipalization of ITR brings gains to the cities, but it is required to correct distortions to be efficient in the collection and in the incentive to the land use, affirm specialists.

 

SERVICE:

#QuantoÉ: http://quantoeitr.escolhas.org/ 

Learn the step-by-step on how to use the platform – Click here

Study about ITR: “Rural Property Tax: tax justice and environmental incentives”