巴西10%最低税制2027生效，高收入投资者或享税收抵免

Carolina Chao and Mariana Oiticica Rogerio Vieira/Valor Brazil’s new 10% minimum tax on high-income earners, which will apply starting with annual tax returns filed in 2027, could have an unintended consequence for the government: some of the country’s wealthiest investors may end up receiving tax credits or refunds. The tax, created by Law 15,270 of 2025, applies to annual income above R$600,000, or R$50,000 a month. It was designed to offset the exemption granted to people earning up to R$5,000 a month and the lower tax burden for those making up to R$7,350. The legislation was paired with a 10% withholding tax on profits and dividends exceeding R$50,000 a month. For wealthy individuals whose income comes mostly from financial investments, however, the dividend tax may ultimately have little effect, said a partner at a traditional wealth management firm. “If you have two-thirds of your billions invested and the other third coming from dividends, you will pay zero,” the person said. “The side effect is that it will give the richest taxpayers a tax credit.” Next administration’s fiscal adjustment could take ‘several paths,’ Ceron says Brazil’s small-business tax changes could have R$50bn impact in 2 years 2% minimum tax on ultra-wealthy could raise $6.1bn in Brazil Tax offsets Any excess tax withheld on dividends will be taken into account when the annual minimum income tax is calculated and could result in part of that amount being refunded, said Gustavo Haddad, head of tax practice at Lefosse Advogados. Haddad noted that the withholding is only an advance payment of the annual minimum tax. It applies when a company distributes more than R$50,000 to an individual in a given month. Receiving less than that amount each month does not mean the taxpayer will escape the 10% levy when all income is added up in the annual return. “People need to pay attention and manage their wealth properly, looking not only at each individual distribution but at their overall position, including dividends and other income. That is something that needs to be monitored to avoid an unpleasant surprise,” Haddad said. The minimum tax weighs more heavily on people who receive most of their income through dividends, he added. If two-thirds of a taxpayer’s income comes from financial investments already taxed at 15%, that portion may be enough to bring the effective rate on total income up to the 10% minimum, allowing the amounts withheld on dividends to be fully refunded. If two-thirds of income comes from dividends, by contrast, the tax already paid on investments may not be enough to meet the 10% minimum across the taxpayer’s total income. “From a wealth-management perspective, the income tax does not necessarily increase the tax burden in practice, because the proportion of income already taxed may mean that what was withheld during the year is refunded,” Haddad said. “People for whom dividends represent a larger share of income, however, are more likely to be effectively subject to the minimum tax.” “The client and advisers need to be proactive in their analysis and in rebalancing the portfolio, because that can make a difference to the tax bill in May 2027 or to the size of the refund. The calculation needs to be made over the calendar year,” he added. Portfolio view The minimum tax changes the way wealth needs to be managed, but it does not mean the wealthiest individuals will necessarily pay less than they did before the law was enacted, said Mariana Oiticica, the BTG Pactual executive responsible for wealth planning. “Before, we looked separately at financial assets, real-estate income and offshore assets. That logic no longer works. You have to assess the client’s full situation, look back at what has happened, consider the direction for this year and then make adjustments,” Oiticica said. “What the change in legislation has brought is complexity. It will not necessarily result in families paying more income tax,” she added. There is no longer a standard formula, she said. Each situation has to be assessed individually. If a person’s income comes solely from financial investments, the minimum tax does not affect that income, added Carolina Chao, head of wealth planning at BTG Pactual. The largest fortunes, however, tend to combine several sources of income, such as rental properties, dividends from holding companies or stock portfolios, and income from overseas companies. Someone who has already paid 27.5% at source on employment income, or 15% on an exclusive investment fund or offshore structure, has already settled that portion of the tax obligation with the Federal Revenue Service, Chao said. “It is a minimum tax, not a maximum one,” she said. “The refund applies only to the 10% advanced on dividends. The rest is already behind you.” Dividend exposure The taxpayers most affected are likely to be entrepreneurs and self-employed professionals who derive a large share of their income from dividends, said Yuri Freitas, head of wealth planning in Brazil at UBS Global Wealth Management. For investors living mainly off financial assets, the law’s mechanics make clear that those already paying between 15% and 22.5% on fixed-income investments, 15% on offshore holdings or tax on equities may already have an average rate above 10% and could potentially receive an income-tax refund the following year. “But we still need to see how the Federal Revenue Service’s system will be designed. Sometimes the mechanics matter as much as the text [of the legislation] itself,” Freitas said. The dividend tax, as designed, is essentially a tool to ensure that taxpayers reach the minimum 10% rate, he said. “There may be situations in which the income tax ends up functioning as a large compulsory loan, withheld in one year and refunded in the next.” When filing the annual return, taxpayers will have to perform two separate tests. The first is to determine whether the effective tax rate paid by the company distributing the proceeds exceeds 34% in corporate taxes and the Social Contribution on Net Profit, known as CSLL. If that threshold is exceeded when dividends paid to the individual are factored in, the taxpayer is entitled to a refund. Many companies, however, fall below that threshold, meaning their partners or shareholders will not qualify for reimbursement. Publicly traded companies will also face the challenge of informing the market of the consolidated effective tax rate across the group. The second test, Freitas said, is to add up all income received, including dividends, while excluding gifts treated as advances on inheritance, inheritances themselves, tax-exempt securities and capital gains. If R$10 million remains after those exclusions, the minimum tax due would be R$1 million. A taxpayer who had already paid R$1.3 million would be entitled to a R$300,000 refund. “Where it will really hurt is when a major business owner derives an overwhelming share of income from dividends and has not yet built up a separate pool of financial investments to balance the average tax rate,” Freitas said. Lawyers, dentists and architects—professionals who operate through companies and use dividends from their businesses to fund their living expenses—are also likely to feel the impact. Portfolio choices As UBS reviewed portfolio adjustments, its wealth-planning team examined whether investors might benefit from replacing tax-exempt securities with taxable assets that would raise their average tax rate, Freitas said. “Even if the return may be slightly higher on an asset taxed at 15%, from a financial standpoint the investor is still better off with the tax-exempt security,” he said, referring to the amount ultimately left in the investor’s pocket. “There is no point maximizing the refund and losing sight of the financial result.” BTG has created a calculator to help its bankers assess whether portfolios need to be recalibrated based on each client’s overall income profile. By entering information from the 2025 annual tax return, bankers can determine whether it makes sense to maintain the current allocation to tax-exempt assets or shift somewhat more money into taxable investments, Oiticica said. “It provides an idea of the client’s tax burden so we can understand what will happen in 2027 and what potential adjustments can still be made this year to take advantage of possible income-tax optimization,” she said. Luca Salvoni, a tax partner at Cascione Advogados, said that, based on what he has seen so far among the firm’s clients, individuals with substantial net worth who carefully manage the balance between financial investments and dividends will generally be able to avoid an additional minimum-tax liability. “But that will often mean moving away from tax-incentivized securities,” Salvoni said. Taxpayers who derive most of their income from dividends and have few other sources of income, by contrast, “will have little room to get around the rule,” he added. Uneven impact The principle behind the 10% headline rate is that the wealthiest taxpayers should pay at least that amount, said Hugo Menezes, legal adviser at wealth manager Aware Investments. “People who have other sources of income, or are in a situation where the company is already taxed at a 34% rate, will effectively not pay that 10%. They already have substantial tax credits, or the company’s operations are already taxed at a significant rate. Many wealthy people will not pay it because they meet those conditions.” The people likely to feel the greatest impact, Menezes said, are professionals operating under Brazil’s Simples Nacional simplified tax regime or the presumed-profit regime who receive dividends from companies whose effective tax rates do not reach 34%. “The tax will end up landing on the midsize business owner. For truly high-income individuals, once the annual adjustment is made, it will more or less cancel itself out—they will not pay an extra 10%,” he said. One question that has emerged in discussions, Menezes added, is how much cash an individual actually needs each month to maintain his or her standard of living. One option would be for the company to distribute fewer dividends while the individual draws down an investment such as a bank certificate of deposit to supplement monthly income, seeking to “avoid as much of the 10% tax as possible within what the law allows.”