Denying a request from the Attorney General's Office (AGU) of President Jair Bolsonaro's (no party affiliation) administration, the Supreme Federal Court Pokémon TCG card game is exempt from taxes in Brazil. See the ruling .
Minister Cármen Lúcia accepted the argument that the letters encourage reading and therefore qualify as books for tax exemption purposes. Currently, a basic pack of 20 letters costs R$15.00 .
Therefore, the tax benefit is provided for in Article 150 of the Federal Constitution , which provides for tax exemptions aimed at reducing the final price of books, newspapers, and sticker albums . The law was created to reduce the final price of items that can stimulate the population's access to culture, information, and education.
Although a Pokémon card isn't a book or even a sticker, Minister Cármen Lúcia agreed that the law needs to be read broadly and that cards can encourage children to become familiar with print media. "Ultimately, meeting the purpose of the tax benefit ," the minister agreed.
The decision was published in April last year and could pave the way for other card games to be tax-exempt like books in the country.
Economy Minister Paulo Guedes raised the possibility of ending tax exemptions for books ( via Gazeta do Povo he goes ahead with the idea, the federal government will be able to tax Pokémon cards.
FEDERAL GOVERNMENT X POKÉMON CARDS
anime cards and tax legislation isn't recent. The coin was launched over a decade ago, in 2009.
On the one hand, the Amazonas State Industry Center (Cieam) and the National Treasury Attorney General's Office (PGFN), an agency linked to the AGU , questioned in court the tax benefit granted to the company Devir Livraria on the sale of the Pokémon TCG.
Devir classified the game as an educational product and therefore relied on the exemption for books and newspapers. After analyzing the issue for years, the Regional Federal Court of the 3rd Region (TRF3) ruled in favor of Pokémon and denied the application of the additional taxes requested by the federal entities.
But the federal government still had some winning cards in this dispute.
In 2020, the Attorney General's Office of the National Treasury, acting as a coach, took the discussion to the Supreme Federal Court (STF), the country's highest court. The PGFN filed an Extraordinary Appeal with Appeal (ARE), asking the STF to suspend the TRF3 decision and allow the application of the taxes until the matter was settled once and for all.
Then something unexpected happened. The definition of Pokémon cards and the government's request landed on Minister Carmém Lúcia , and she had to focus on the game.
Federal Regional Court 's analysis of equating Pokémon with books or a sticker album for tax exemption was superficial . First, the TCG was a strategy . Then, most obviously, Pokémon cards weren't stickers to be considered stickers.
“The immunity rule provided for in the constitutional text aims to stimulate the advancement of culture, democracy, education, access to information, and a Pokémon game certainly does not serve this purpose ” argued the federal government.
The PGFN was convinced that the cards did not encourage reading — they merely complemented a game of conquest and exchange, an element taxed by the Federal Revenue Service under the classification of “playing cards.”
The Supreme Federal Court (STF) rejected the arguments. It considered Pokémon TCG's case for having interactive content and characters taken from manga , which the defense described as "picture books .
The understanding went further. The Supreme Court justice accepted that Pokémon TCG encourages the pursuit of knowledge and classified a letter as a means of transmitting printed information to children.
Furthermore, the arguments on the table, Pokémon TCG was included in the concept of books and periodicals of the immunizing tax rule.
Ultimately, the Supreme Federal Court (STF) denied the AGE and also ordered the federal government to pay 10% of the attorney's fees. The case returned to the TRF3, where it can still be reviewed, but this time with a super-effective blow from a higher court.
Text copied from the blog: The Enemy
