ISS ON STREAMING SERVICES

Unconstitutionality or innovation required?

Abstract

The digital economy has brought new economic models to the fore. Among these, it is possible to highlight streaming, a business model characterized by the availability and transmission of content over the internet, without the need to use the user's physical storage. Thus, the question arises about the taxation of this activity, which was implemented with Complementary Law No. 157/2016, which made streaming taxed by the Tax on Services of Any Nature (ISS), which has generated great controversy since then, especially in regarding the constitutionality of such law and the definition of streaming as a “service”. Therefore, this research work sought to analyze this controversy after five years of the promulgation of LC 157/2016, aiming to understand what the doctrine, the jurisprudence and the academy say about the constitutionality of the ISS incidence on streaming. In this work, a qualitative, exploratory and deductive methodology was used, based on bibliographic research in which a literature review was carried out on the subject, through the analysis of articles, theses, laws and jurisprudence on the controversy of the ISS incidence on streaming services. At the end, it can be seen that the ISS on streaming services is constitutional, as well as it was observed that it is necessary to update the legal concepts in the Brazilian tax scope.