Decision was suspended after the Public Prosecutor's Office filed a public civil lawsuit against a law change promoted by the state government. With the preliminary injunction, the collection of the IPVA motor vehicle tax is provisionally suspended for all taxpayers with disabilities who had an exemption from the tax in 2020.
The Court of Justice of the State of São Paulo (TJ-SP) suspended on Friday (22) the rule change that generated the billing of the Motor Vehicle Ownership Tax (IPVA) for people with disabilities in SP. The new rule had gone into effect in January and removed tax exemption for taxpayers with 42 different types of disabilities.
The change in the law had been made by the administration João Doria (PSDB), which still last year sent the fiscal adjustment package for approval by the Legislative Assembly (Alesp). The objective of the adjustment, which ended up being approved by the state deputies, was to try to contain the deficit in public accounts in 2021.
new legislation established that only people with severe or profound physical disabilities – physical, visual, intellectual – who use adapted vehicles to get around would be entitled to the exemption. Previously, 42 types of disabilities could be covered by the exemption.
However, the São Paulo Public Prosecutor's Office filed a public civil action against the measure – This was the lawsuit granted on Friday by Appellate Judge José Helton Nogueira Diefenthäler Júnior, on a preliminary basis. The lawsuit alleged that the new measure was unconstitutional and eliminated the exemption for more than 80% people with disabilities.
The appellate judge understood that granting an IPVA exemption only to vehicles adapted to the individual situation of each driver “ends up creating undue discrimination among drivers with disabilities, to the detriment of those who have severe or severe disabilities but do not need an adapted vehicle, in apparent violation of the constitutional principle of equality.”.
With the injunction, the collection of the IPVA is preliminarily suspended for all taxpayers with disabilities who already had an exemption from payment in the 2020 fiscal year.
In a statement, the São Paulo government commented on the judge's decision. “People with severe or profound physical disabilities whose vehicles require adaptation continue to have the right to IPVA exemption, as well as autistic individuals and non-driving individuals with severe or profound physical, visual, and mental disabilities, who continue to be eligible,” the statement reads. .
public civil action
In the public civil action filed by the MP-SP and accepted by the TJ-SP, prosecutor Wilson Taffner, from the area of protection for people with disabilities, claimed that the government's new measure was “discriminatory and unconstitutional, creating ”distinct categories of people with disabilities“.
“With the new rule, unconstitutional discrimination is created, including among disabled people themselves, since those who acquire a vehicle without individualized adaptations for their own driving would be taxed, while those who buy a car with some individual adaptation would not,” the lawsuit states.
