What are Goods for Personal Use and Comsumption?

pode a Lei dispor livremente sobre o que são Bens Destinados ao Uso ou ao Consumo Pessoal(is)?

Abstract

This article examines the definition and treatment of goods for personal use and consumption as proposed by the complementary bill presented by the Executive Power to the National Congress, for the regulation of the Dual Value Added Tax (VAT), introduced by Constitutional Amendment 132/2023 in Brazil. It demonstrates that there is no broad power for the legislator to freely define and classify such goods. The fallacy of the false dichotomy must be avoided, which suggests that if words do not have a precise and prior meaning to be merely discovered, as they indeed do not, then they can have any meaning their users wish to assign to them. In truth, it is the context, and not the speakers, that compellingly determines the meaning to be given to terms and expressions, a process for which the previous meanings of words, as indicated in dictionaries, are important clues. Through an interdisciplinary approach that intertwines legal theory and the philosophy of language, the study discusses the consequences of the broad scope given by the bill to such concepts, with the aim of unduly restricting the scope of non-cumulativity, which does not align with the constitutional regulation given to ICMS. Therefore, the jurisprudence related to this tax, complacent with such restrictions, is not applicable. The article concludes that a more precise definition of such goods is crucial, linked to their use (personally used or consumed, and not in the performance of the taxed activity), and not to characteristics intrinsic to them, which aligns with the principles of non-cumulativity and tax neutrality, in order to avoid litigation and ensure equity in the Brazilian tax system, fulfilling the promises made by EC n. 132/2023.