92% of the reason why it sucks to be brazilian

I Cast Fist@programming.dev to Mildly Infuriating@lemmy.world – 401 points –

Yes, you're looking at ~92% tax right there. Final price jumped from ~113 dollars (584BRL) to ~220 dollars.

EDIT: A bit of clarification, when buying from abroad there's a flat 60% federal tax if the thing + shipping price surpasses 50 dollars. Then there's a state tax that can vary between 17-25%, which goes on top of the total taxed value. Part of the tax is literally "tax of a tax"

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I guess this is supposed to stop you guys from buying stuff in USD, right?

From buying stuff from abroad in general. If it's imported, it can be taxed. Before Haddad (current economy minister), it was a gamble whether you'd be taxed or not, most of the time you weren't. Now, "to combat contraband", Aliexpress gave the thumbs up to this fucking stupid idea.

Oh yeah great idea. To combat black market activity, let’s make the open market extremely expensive to use.

I think the real irony is that, up to 1993, it's safe to say 99% of all computers we had here were contraband, because the taxes back then were even more absurd. Never mind the hyperinflation of the time.

You say that, but there's effectively no black market for imports like PC parts.

Worked at a trade expo years ago. Talked to Brazilians. Another issue they ran into is corruption.

They were doing their best to temporarily export stuff to Europe, but there were endless delays in Brazil, and sudden and unforseen 'extra fees' that needed to be paid to get stuff out of the country.

Guy wasn't even angry anymore. Just sad. His fellow countrymen were undermining a Brazilian business out of sheer greed.

Incredibly short sighted too.

Don't blindly believe everything people tell you. Quite often, the reason why these "entrepreneurs" have to pay bribes is because they didn't go through official channels and/or don't have the necessary permits to operate.

Incredibly shortsighted too

That’s business. Cash now. The rest is fuck you, cash now.

That's not business, that's corruption. They're not generating any added value like business does, they're parasiting on it.

That's just capitalism, then

It is not, as government agencies are not for profit profit organisations de iure. On top of that it's violating law, and debfacto stealing from both the citizen and potentially from the state itself. You can't just throw 'capitalism bad' on any observation of shitty socio-economic behaviour.

This whole thread is best of Lemmy material but especially your comment!

I.E. you're saying you're okay with tax fraud, is that right?

Brazil’s government heavily pushes for things to be made there. A place I worked several years ago had an office there for some final assembly or something for products sold there.

Thats a lie. This policy was negotiated mostly with the burgeouis resellers.

We have NO concrete plan to actually industrialize.