Tributação e teoria da agência: os reflexos societários da isenção do Imposto de Renda sobre dividendos

Abstract

This paper aims to verify whether, in the light of the Agency Theory, the income tax exemption on dividends, currently existing in Brazil, contributes to the reduction of agency conflicts within Brazilian publicly traded corporations. The hypothesis before the questioning is that this tax policy reduces such conflicts, as it diminishes the amount of resources at the free disposal of the companies' controlling shareholders. The research is of key importance in order to verify the possible effects of a reform aimed at returning with the taxation on these incomes. In order to answer the question posed, this inquiry started from a legal-social perspective and made use of deductive reasoning, fitting into a practical and theoretical genre, and a legal-comprehensive and legal-propositive type, so as to promote a qualitative and content analysis of Law, Accounting and Economics sources. The conclusion reached is that the current regime of income tax exemption on dividends does not contribute to the reduction of agency conflicts in Brazilian corporations, to the extent that, besides not having increased the distribution rate of this income, it has turned it into a form of favoring corporate shareholders, among which, in general, are the controlling shareholders, to the detriment of individual shareholders and of the distributing company itself.