EXTRAFISCALITY AND SOCCER: EXTRAFISCAL NORMS IN SOCCER AND THE LAW 13.155/15 (PROFUT)

Abstract

Soccer clubs have been tax debtors for decades. Law 13.155/15, known as Profut, established the Program for the Modernization of Management and Fiscal Responsibility for Brazilian Football, which granted the possibility for football clubs to join an installment under specific conditions. These conditions aim to promote professionalism, transparency and financial responsibility in clubs. This rule, therefore, generates extra-fiscal effects, since it influences the management of clubs in a peculiar way. Thus, the purpose and nature of the extrafiscal rule was studied, which is governed by the general principle of the common good, and by the specific principles of need and merit. It was also understood that the legitimacy that guides the power of the state to generate effects in the management of clubs comes from a constitutional provision related to the duty to promote sport, in which soccer fits, as well as the understanding of this being a cultural heritage of Brazil. In addition, a critical overview of Profut’s efficiency and equality was made, in which the historical inefficiency of the installments was verified and the possible violation of the principle of equality when granting tax benefits for reckless management. However, it is because of this that the disciplinary conditions in the financial management of clubs is a good innovation, as well as the differential treatment for clubs comes from the fulfillment of the constitutional programmatic rule that disciplines the incentive to sport. Finally, it is concluded that through the implementation of the extrafiscal merit rule, the government obtained positive tax effects.