Tax Spike in Brazil Weighing Heavily on Cosmetics Market

Due to a new policy in May that levied the industrial IPI tax—Imposto sobre Produtos Industrializados, which is Portuguese for Tax on Industrialized Products—on cosmetics wholesalers and producers, the cost of cosmetics is expected to increase 20% or more, according to a Reuters report. The tax will likely stoke inflation and weigh heavily on the world's No. 3 beauty market.