Resumen:
In this work, in addition to presenting the evolution of tax expenditures – the correct term for dealing with tax exemptions2 –, which were classified into 12 distinct categories, we will seek to relate them to government spending, distributed in the same categories. However, before the quantitative exposition, this work will describe the paths that led to building a consensus regarding the inferiority of state efficiency compared to the market. This is because there was an important inflection in Brazilian economic policy starting in 2012. As Orair (2016) clearly demonstrates, it is in this year that the State reduces its spending on investments and places it in the hands of the private sector. It is not to say that the government reduces its fiscal spending, but rather that fiscal spending is redirected from direct state action to fiscal and credit subsidies.
