Big tech almost quadrupled the share of Brazilian income it sends abroad between 2014 and 2024, while the tax burden on remittances fell by 73% during the period.
Aggregate federal revenue data obtained by Leaf point out that the percentage of revenue in Brazil that major technology multinationals send abroad increased by 323% between 2014 and 2024.
Big tech began sending more than half of the money earned in Brazil to other countries. In 2014, they sent 17.12% of their income abroad. In 2024, it was 55.66%, more than half. The peak of remittances occurred in 2023, when they corresponded to 61.87% of income.
Although big tech companies complain about the high tax burden in Brazil, remittance taxes have decreased proportionally: they were 30.42% in 2014 and increased to 22.13% in 2024.
Remittances increased from R$2.8 billion in 2014 (R$4.93 billion corrected by the IPCA) to R$80.3 billion in 2024.
The gross income of big tech also jumped: it rose from R$21.327 billion in 2014 (corrected by the IPCA) to R$144.3 billion in 2024, an increase of 585%.
The federal tax burden on gross income increased from 17.9% in 2014 to 22.7%, an increase of 13%.
The data includes revenue, collection and shipments from Amazon (including AWS), Apple, Facebook, Google, Google Cloud, Microsoft and Nvidia in Brazil.
The tax rates for different types of remittances did not change between 2014 and 2024. The tax burden on remittances changed because the share of certain types of remittances increased, such as royalties, which have a lower average tax incidence (and vary depending on the destination of the remittance). At the same time, categories of remittances, such as labor income, which have a higher average rate, have declined proportionately.
Compared to other economic sectors, big technologies are not among the most taxed. According to a Firjan survey based on data from the Federal Revenue, the National Secretariat of the Treasury, Confaz, the Caixa Econômica Federal and the IBGE (Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics), the sector with the highest tax burden (including federal, state and municipal taxes) is the manufacturing industry, with 49.2%.
The least taxed are agriculture and mining (8%) and construction (24.1%), followed by services, which include technology companies, financial institutions and several other segments (29.7%), commerce (38.3%) and industrial utilities (electricity, telecommunications, water supply, waste collection), with 41.1%.
According to Firjan, much of the difference comes from state taxes, particularly ICMS, which primarily affect the manufacturing industry.
But even analyzing only federal taxes, the service sector is not the most affected. Industry records a charge of 23.2%, while services appear in second position, with 16.9%.
“When we analyze only federal taxes, industry already appears to be the sector that pays the most taxes in Brazil,” estimates Jonathas Goulart, chief economist at Firjan. “The scenario is even worse if we include all taxes, especially ICMS, which disproportionately hits industrial production. Today, manufacturing pays taxes equivalent to 50% of everything it produces.”
In a note, the Brazilian Chamber of Digital Economy (camara-e.net), which represents companies such as Amazon, Google and Meta (Facebook), highlighted that digital service companies are among the country’s largest contributors and “play a fundamental role in Brazil’s economic development, whether due to the volume of tax contributions or the continued investment in innovation, technology and the generation of jobs and income.”
The chamber sent a technical opinion commissioned by the entity and prepared by the consulting firm LCA, based on Federal Revenue data, emphasizing that digital services companies pay more taxes on their own profits than companies in other segments of the economy. According to the LCA study, these companies receive on average 16.4% of their gross revenues in federal taxes, more than double the average for other economic sectors (6.1%). Among the largest companies in the sector, covered by the real profit regime, this charge reaches 18.3% of gross turnover, higher than that of companies with presumed profit (12.8%).
Regarding the increase in the share of income sent as remittances abroad, the entity says: “It is important to contextualize the fact that remittances associated with international activities are part of the natural dynamics of global businesses and technology-intensive economic models.”