Teoria do federalismo fiscal: notas sobre as contribuições de Oates, Musgrave, Shah e Ter-Minassian [Fiscal federalism theory: comments on the contributions of Oates, Musgrave, Shah and Ter-Minassian]

This text presents and comments on the classic proposals of Oates and Musgrave, relative to the effort of conforming the profile of the federative system and the possibilities of optimizing the tax policy, to the recent contributions presented by Shah and Ter-Minassian, focused on the improvement of the fiscal federative relations in the context of a guided economic policy concentrated primarily on reaching the objectives related to stabilization. The objective of this article is to present and comment on the theoretical contributions of Oates, Musgrave, Shah and Ter-Minassian, referring to the core themes of the federative issue: autonomy, fiscal functions, taxing authorities, fiscal transfers and the relevance of the coordinating action conducted by the federal government. The text demonstrates the complexity involved in the theoretical treatment and the related issues on federative policies, and shows the need for continuous improvement of the institutions that preside over fiscal relations in the federative context, based on the coordinating action led by the federal government.