Rio mayor Eduardo Paes criticises “authoritarianism” of Lula government’s economic agenda

Paes stood up against the proposed Tax Reform that wants the extinction of ISS, a tax charged over the provision of services and the main source of revenue for municipalities.

Historical ally of Lula, the mayor of Rio de Janeiro, Eduardo Paes (PSD), took to social networks to criticize the “authoritarianism” with which the extraordinary secretary of the Ministry of Finance for Tax Reform, Bernard Appy, is imposing the end of the Tax on Services (ISS).

This week, Appy said that “mayors will have to accept the end of the ISS because the tax is backward and the discussion about what is merchandise, taxed by the ICMS, and what is service, taxed by the ISS, hinders the country.

Criticizing the secretary’s statement, Paes said that “nothing can be worse in the world than ‘technical’ authoritarian […] And I thought I had voted for Lula against authoritarianism,” wrote the mayor on Twitter.

Paes says the problem is not ISS but the “excessive concentration of resources in the central government”.

“He (Appy) may not know, but one of the great achievements of the FC of 88 was to elevate municipalities to federative entities.”

“This independence, added to many obligations defined by the Constitution, can only occur in practice with the collection capacity of local governments,” said Paes when he predicted the “failure” of the government’s proposed tax reform.

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