REVIEWING THE PRINCIPLE OF TAX TYPICITY: AN ANALYSIS FROM THE NOTION OF CONCEPTS AND TYPES

Abstract

Objective: The objective of this article is to review the principle of tax typicity in light of an adequate conception of concepts and types, analyzing its content and delimiting its extension.

Methodology: The research has a basic or pure nature, the approach is qualitative and adopts the bibliographic procedure, starting from the distinction between concepts and types.

Results: The tax typicity constitutes the material dimension of the constitutional principle of legality and is embodied in the command addressed to the legislator to describe all elements of the tax and its legal consequences. The concepts of private law incorporated by the tax legislation can be reformulated by the Tax Law, as long as through statutes. However, the concepts used by the Constitution to delimit tax competences cannot be altered by the infra-constitutional legislator, due to constitutional supremacy. The economic interpretation of the taxable event, as well as other doctrines that intend to justify taxation directly on the principles of ability to pay, equality and social solidarity, is not supported by our legal system.

Contributions: The principle of tax typicality is positive in the national legal system, and should be understood not as a requirement for the selection of absolutely precise concepts for the definition of incidence hypotheses, but as a command to use, to the greatest extent possible, concepts that allow the predictability and determinability of taxes.