Estado, serviços públicos e tributação: uma abordagem a partir dos custos dos direitos sociais e do dever fundamental de pagar impostos

Abstract

Public services, as instruments to implement public policies, play a major role in the Democratic Rule of Law written in the Federal Constitution of Brazil, of 1988, above all through the specific provisions concerning social rights. In the context of privatization, State Reform represents the migration from the bureaucratic to the managerial model of Public Administration. During this period, the implementation of part of the public services becomes the task of private enterprise under the signature and concession of the State. In the current historical situation, worsened by the Public Administration’s lack of capacity to respond to growing social demands, rights are placed above fundamental duties. However, it is forgotten that the costs of implementing fundamental social rights require public funding, through taxation, from the perspective of the fundamental duty to pay taxes. Tax, in the context of the Democratic Rule of Law, is an insurmountable requirement, conditio sine qua non, for implementation, ef