Sao Paulo

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.

São Paulo FC won the Brazilian championship of football in 2007.

São Paulo finished with 77 points, a 15 point lead - the largest ever - over the runner up, Santos (see final ranking of Brazil Championship 2007). Four rounds before the end, São Paulo was already champion.

CBF, the Brazilian Confederation, acknowledged São Paulo as the first team to be five-times national champion. The decision caused some controversy, because Flamengo, the most popular club in Brazil, claims to have been champion in five occasions; however, in 1987, Flamengo won the First Division and refused (with support of all major teams, including São Paulo) to go for a play-off against the winner of Second Division.

Above, photo of the team lined up for the last match of the Championship, against Botafoto, on November 27th (photo from the official São Paulo website). This site lists the names of all players of São Paulo in 2007.

Corinthians, the most popular team in the State of São Paulo, was demoted to the Second Division in 2008.

SEADE (Sistema Estadual de Análise de Dados - State Secretary for Data Analysis) published a report today concluding that, upon examining data surveyed by the Brazilian Institute of Geography and Statistics, in the year of 2005 (latest data available), the Gross Product of the State of São Paulo grew more than the GNP of Brazil.

The Gross Product of São Paulo grew from R$ 643 billion in 2004 to R$ 727 billion in 2005, a growth rate of 3.6%; the Brazilian GNP grew, in the same period, by 3.2%.

The Services sector grew by 4.4%, with particular strenght in the Services for Corporations (6.6%) and Financial Services (5.1%). The Industrial sector grew by 2.1%. Constructions remained stable, and Agriculture shrank by 3.6%.

The Product of São Paulo grew to 33.9% of Brazil’s GNP in 2005, up from 33.1% in 2004. The graphs below shows that the GNP of São Paulo is bigger than all regions of Brazil (North, North East, South, West Center), except for the South East region, where São Paulo itself is located.

The same SEAD report revealed that the GNP per capita in the city of São Paulo is more than 50% bigger than the GNP per capita of Brazil. In the city of São Paulo, GNP p/c was R$ 17.977, and in Brazil it was R$ 11.568.

More information (in Portuguese): click here.

A new shopping center was opened in São Paulo: Shopping Itaquera.

It is very unlikely that tourists or business people ever come to visit this shopping. Itaquera is the very last station, in the Eastern end, of the West-East metrô line; access to the shopping will be through the station. With nearly 500,000 inhabitants, Itaquera is bigger than most Brazilian cities; most of the residents in Itaquera are of lower income classes, many have emigrated from other States in Brazil.

The opening of the Shopping Itaquera, the first one in the Eastern extreme of the city, shows that the progress is arriving, even in the most distant areas of São Paulo (3,500 jobs were opened). The shopping will have 200 shops, about ten big anchor shops, eight movie theatres, several restaurants.

In the first day, 70,000 people visited the shopping, twice as many as the average of the shoppings in São Paulo. Administrators of Itaquera said that new improvements are expected soon, such as a public Faculty, a regional Court of Justice and an inter-city bus station.