Fiscal Federalism, Democracy and Trade Integration. The Case of Brazilian VAT

In a context of generalization of decentralization in the world going "hand in hand" with democratization and globalization, Brazil qualifies the universality of this process, at least in matter of fiscal federalism. In the paper, we firstly adopt a comparative perspective relative to an important component of fiscal revenue: VAT. The main differences between the two fiscal system –VAT in EU and ICMS in Brazil- is the "rule of origin" prominent in intra-Brazilian trade vs the "rule of destination" dominant in intra-European trade. We show how the Brazilian system induces distortions as well in trade between States as foreign trade. It can drive to fiscal wars between States. We confirm that if exports have no impact on VAT revenues, imports increase them. Even non-equalitarian, we show a trend in favor of convergence in VAT revenues between Brazilian states.