Legal certainty, res judicata and binding precedents in tax matters in the jurisprudence of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court

The article deals with the tensions involving the intangibi-lity of material res judicata and the normative and binding force of judicial precedents, as guarantors of stability of legal-tax relations that occur over time, from the perspec-tive of the principle of legal certainty. From the perspective of the individual subjective dimension of legal security, the study sought to demonstrate that the jurisprudence of the Brazilian Federal Supreme Court, on the one hand, departs from the automatic retroactive effects of binding prece-dents on the sentential command covered by res judicata, on the other, from the objective formal perspective of the stability of the legal order, admits that the binding force of precedents established in the context of concentrated con-trol and in the systematic of general repercussion, radiate their immediate effects so as to prospectively cease the effectiveness of the final and unappealable sentence that deals with successive tax relations, when other principles contained in the abstract ideals of legal certainty are at stake, such as equality, free competition and neutrality of taxation.