The Public Finance Law in the Covid-19 Pandemic in Brazil

Luma Cavaleiro de Macêdo Scaff / Luiz Felipe da Fonseca Pereira / Arthur Porto Reis Guimarães

Keywords

Financial law; Covid-19; Pandemic; Debt; Tax measures; Credit measures.

Abstract

The Covid-19 pandemic provoked a crisis in public health and in the economy with great challenges in the face of the drop in collection and stimulus to economic activity. The objective of the present work is to study the instruments of costing rights through tax actions at the beginning of the pandemic, in 2020, carried out by the Federal Executive Branch in the Covid-19 Impact Monitoring Group created within the scope of the Ministry of Economy. Questions are asked about the measures relating to the financial activity of the State to combat the pandemic and whether financial law offers answers to the crisis. It adopts the hypothetical deductive method and primary and secondary sources through data collection and quantitative and qualitative analysis. It is divided into three parts in addition to the introduction and conclusion. The first analyzes the function of Financial Law in times of Pandemic, with emphasis on public spending, the stimulation of economic activity, and the balance of public accounts. The second studies the fiscal strategy in the Monitoring Group. The third examines whether public debt is a financing tool for the pandemic response. It concludes that extraordinary credits should be used for financing, combined with a fiscal strategy that involves the adoption of a cautious tax policy and incisive credit measures, with public debt being the main form of financing.