Taxpayer Giges and Fiscal Transparency

Thoughts on Taxpayers’ Tax Morale

Abstract

This article aims to give rise to a reflection on the reader about tax morality of the taxpayer, especially at a time of transition in Brazil and in the world, from a state of tax secrecy to one of tax transparency.
Therefore, the article starts with the myth of the Ring of Gyges, in the way described in Book II of Plato’s Republic, weaving opportune comparisons regarding the morality of the taxpayer, “invisible” in the eyes of the tax authorities, and its possible change of attitude, by having to settle to a more tax transparency world. The moral or immoral acts of the taxpayer are also analyzed under the mental acts described by Klaus Tipke.
Meanwhile, it analyzes current issues such as the actions of the OECD against so-called “BEPS”, the US FATCA and the trial that declared the constitutionality of Supplementary Law No. 105/2011, in February 2016, by the Brazil’s Supreme Federal Court.