Brazil’s rural land tax: a mechanism to promote sustainable land uses in the Amazon.

Brazil’s Rural Land Tax (Imposto Territorial Rural) was designed to stimulate production in the rural sector. Property owners who have all their eligible land in use and who register high productivity can receive up to a 90% discount on their land tax payments. The authors analyze the effects of the Rural Land Tax on ranching and logging, the principal land use activities in the Eastern Amazon, and find that the tax is light on ranching but heavy on logging. Their analysis also reveals that the Rural Land Tax falls to achieve its intended goal of bolstering productivity of ranching and logging. They propose modifications to this tax law that would reward forest management and the intensification of ranching.