Biofuels around the Globe. In Brazil, cars run on a 25 percent ethanol gasoline blend, taking advantage of being the world's largest producer of sugar-based ethanol of 16 billion litres (3.52 billion gallons) a year. Petrobras exported 2 billion litres of ethanol in 2005 and plans to increase exports to 9.4 billion litres in 2010.

The Supreme Tax Court has rejected a tax auditor demand for details of payments to or from bank customers in order to facilitate checks on their tax honesty.

The finance ministry has issued a decree on the conditions under which redundancy payments still rank for favourable tax treatment, despite continuing or additional benefits to ex-employees.