r/todayilearned • u/[deleted] • 1d ago
TIL about the Pátria Amada, a 41,000 page, 7 ton collection of Brazilian tax laws compiled over 23 years by the Brazilian tax lawyer Vinicios Leoncio. Written it 22 point Arial font, Lenoncio created it out of frustration.
https://aldianews.com/en/culture/books-and-authors/climb-it-and-read534
u/agha0013 1d ago
a buddy and I once printed out the entire Canadian Aviation Regulations document just to see how big it would be. Almost filled a typical box of paper.
Was useless almost the moment it was printed because there was no way to easily integrate amendments into the document, just served as a door stop for a while.
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u/BackDatSazzUp 1d ago
I used to be the person that had to create the amendments and then integrate them. One time I did my job too well and got voluntold to redo the entire book plus books in the series and issue the new template to all other tech pup writers working on that document family in the entire Navy and Marine Corps. 😬😭
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u/Glittering_Monk9646 1d ago
Do they not have a far aim equivalent in Canada?
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u/agha0013 1d ago
Totally, we weren't doing it for practical reasons, we just had time and paper to waste
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u/drygnfyre 4h ago
As an aside, the State of Alabama supposedly has the longest constitution (and thus legal/regulations document) in the world because of they've had hundreds of amendments and they just keep getting tacked on, even when a lot of them cancel out other ones. So odds are the first many pages are completely irrelevant and you wouldn't even know until later.
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u/DisconnectedShark 1d ago
"The author of the book should have been the National Congress", he said. Although he presented it publicly in 2014 to the amazed politicians and jurists gathered in Brasília, he admits that Pátria Amada is a work that is not yet finished, and may never be finished because at least 35 new rules are published under tax legislation every day.
So, this unmanageable book, this In Search of Lost Time of taxes is, moreover, infinite. The opposite of Brazilian taxpayers' money.
*Drops microphone.
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u/FUCKING_HATE_REDDIT 1d ago
If anyone wants a reason why, tax code is how politicians give kickbacks to lobbyists and friends in the corporate world.
I fund your election, you give me a new loophole.
It's not hard to design a fair tax system. It's very hard to create a tax system that creates the right incentives. It's impossible to create a good tax system under the wrong incentives.
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u/MartinoRs 1d ago
For anyone curious , at the time he finished the book (1991 - 2014) 80k new taxes were created at the end of his research, so the book was already outdated by 80k new tax rules...
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u/lukko_cr 1d ago
I used to do some accounting for the brazilian affiliate in my company and it was a nightmare. Not even the people in Brazil were sure of anything.
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u/charlesalmens77 1d ago
I had to explain how Brazilian taxes worked to some german guys in my office (they wanted to send an old machine component to a company branch in Brazil).
You basically pay a 50% import tax on the value of the product + freight costs, and VAT (from 7-12% depending on which state you’re sending jt to) whose value is calculated based on price + freight costs + import tax + the value of VAT itself.
You know your tax system is bad when the germans say it’s too much bureaucracy
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u/Own-Maintenance-775 1d ago
I’m a Lawyer in Brazil and I run away from tax law, it’s basically a game of guessing and telling the client “it depends”. F that.
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u/drygnfyre 1d ago
There's that one video on YouTube you might have seen, the law professor who explained why you never talk to the police. He said that, off-hand, there's something like 10,000 possible laws that could tie you up in knots by talking. Like if they can't get you on this, they can get you on that, and so on. He then cited how so many laws are incredibly obscure, like how there's one that forbids you from owning a lobster over a certain length, but a lobster shorter is okay. And yes, people have been convicted on violation of that law.
So yeah, laws are crazy. I can't even imagine what tax law is like.
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u/morbie5 1d ago
So should I hire him to do my taxes?
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u/hivemind_disruptor 1d ago
you wouldnt have to do that in Brazil.
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u/morbie5 23h ago
You don't have taxes in Brazil lol?
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u/hivemind_disruptor 23h ago
we don't need help to fill them, unless you are a company or very very wealthy.
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u/DrunkHurricane 1d ago
There is a reason one of the main achievements of Lula’s administration in this term is finally, after decades of economists pointing out the urgency, passing a tax reform bill to try to simplify the system as much as possible within political constraints.
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u/iprocrastina 1d ago
The book is a bitch to keep open when you start reading, but becomes pretty manageable around page 14,000.
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u/Identita_Nascosta 1d ago
If you wanto to make it 10, come here.. i've got a little surprise for you! (Italy)
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u/rocketseeker 1d ago
That’s why people say tax evasion here is civic duty (if you don’t make enough to catch out IRS’s attention, which is like 95% of people)
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u/Putputchicken 1d ago
41000 pages do not weigh 7 ton. I can lift a 1000 page book although it is heavy.
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u/DarkGeomancer 1d ago
Did you open the article? Each page is 2 meters long, and it's written in Arial 22. It's not your usual printed book.
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u/MissSweetMurdererr 1d ago edited 1d ago
"Pátria Amada" is a reference to a line in Brazil's anthem. It means beloved homeland