ECOLOGICAL ICMS: AN ANALYSIS OF THE CURRENT MODEL ADOPTED BY THE MINAS GERAIS STATE

Abstract

Every city has the right of receiving a part of the tributary resources raised by the Union and by the State, which are denominated constitutional transfers. At the ICMS' distribution stage, the Ecological ICMS is destined to the cities where such environmental policies are adopted. The aim of this study was to research and investigate how the state of Minas Gerais distributes to its cities the financial resources from the ecological ICMS, furthermore analyze the criteria that were used to assess which values were received by the cities from this state. The methodology used in this study was descriptive, focusing on a comparative analysis of the criteria used in Minas Gerais to distribute the part-quota from the ICMS to all cities. A number of 36 cities had been analyzed for 6 years. The results showed that the ICMS quota-part contemplates 17 criteria. Among them, the environment criteria are the lowest one, reaching an index of 1,10 . Taking into consideration the period that this research was done, none of the cities had received the contribution called Mata Seca. Only 3 cities had received the set of Conservation and Sanitation unit. By the Conservation unit criteria, 12 cities had received the Ecological ICMS. By the Sanitation criteria, only 13 cities had received it. It shows that the prefectures from Minas Gerais have been losing the importance of the ecological ICMS and people who are supposed to be in charge of the cities' administration lack knowledge concerning the Robin Hood Law.