SÃO PAULO: With the reduction in production and consumption due to one of the worst economic crises Brazil has ever faced, federal revenues in the country during the first quarter of 2016 registered the lowest volumes of the past six years. According to Brazil’s Internal Revenue Service, federal revenues totaled R$313.014 billion during the first three months of the year, down by 8.19 percent in relation to the same period last year.
The government agency blames the steep decline in economic activity for the reduction of revenues at the beginning of the year, with industrial production falling by 11.8 percent, sales and services declining by 10.47 percent and imports registering a retraction of 33.62 percent in US dollars, during the period.
Not even the withdrawal of tax breaks from strategic sectors of the economy helped to compensate the decline in federal revenues. In the first three months of the year the government was able to collect an additional R$6.7 billion in revenues from sectors which had been benefited with tax reductions or even exemptions in the previous years.
