Car stolen ? Less taxes.
The Government of São Paulo is proposing a law which will be a pioneer in Brazil: if a car is stolen, the owner will not have to pay the respective taxes (if he didn’t pay yet) or will have tax refunded (if he already paid the taxes).
In Brazil, the tax on vehicles is called IPVA (Tax on Property of Automotive Vehicles) and is collected by the States (half of the tax must be remitted to the municipality where the vehicle is registered). Each State has autonomy to regulate on IPVA.
Every year, the State establishes a deadline for payment of IPVA; usually, cars with licenses ending in 0 and 1 pay in March, ending in 2 and 3 pay in April and so on. IPVA may be paid all at once, with a discount, or in monthly installments. Today, when a car is stolen, the owner must keep on paying monthly until the DETRAN declares the car is stolen (which may take a few months), or will loose the money, if he paid at once.
After the new law is passed, the owner of the stolen car should go immediately to the Police and file a “Boletim de Ocorrência” (BO), a record of theft. The BO can be filed over the internet, if the car was stolen without violence, or in a Police Department, if the car was robbed with violence (gun point). The BO is automatically passed to the Secretary of Justice, and from there to the Secretary of Finances.
The owner shall pay taxes only until the month that the car was stolen; if the car is recovered, the owner must start pay monthly taxes again. If the IPVA was already paid in totum, then the owner will have to wait for one year to either get a credit or get a refund; if the car is recovered, the credit will be proportional to the months the car was stolen.
See more detailed info (in Portuguese) at this page of the website of the São Paulo State.
Governor of São Paulo José Serra (on the photo, introducing the law) says that it is the obligation of the State to avoid cars being stolen or robbed. If the State fails to acomplish this mission, it is fair that the tax payer be exempted. Cars stolen in other States of Brazil will not be benefited by this law.