Donations

If your wife has an ONG or other form of charitable organization then you can. She will need a CNPJ number to receive the money. If not then no. If you wish to send your wife money state that it is for maintenance. This worked for us when my husband was in the UK. There is a limit to how much you can send though.

Also there is a small tax on ALL financial transactions the IOF (Imposto sobre Operações Financeiras) that will be collected by the bank on top of the exchange rate and any transaction fee the bank may have.

Thanks "Dogs in Brazil" and "wjwoodward".

My wife made a series of phone calls and discovered that the tax due is 4% on any money I donate to her in Brazil. She was given the same answer from a few separate places so I guess this must be concrete.

The transaction cost with Banco Do Brasil is 0.38%. So for example if I donate R$100,000 to my wife in Brazil (selling GBP and buying R$) I'd pay:

0.38% of R$100,000 = R$380
I'd then have to pay 4% to the government i.e.
0.04*(100000-380) = R$3,984.8

Sounds about right

I am not an expert in this area but I believe there is 2 types of taxes:
- There is a fee that Banco do Brasil takes for all transfers from a foreigh account to a brazilian one (4 or 5%), not sure.
For example (neglectling transfert fee and if Banco do Brasil´s fee is 5%), if you send R$100 000, Banco do Brasil takes 5% so your wife will receive on her account  R$95 000. Nothing to do.  Banco do Brasil takes its "commission" directly on the transfert.
- but carefull, there is certainly an impact on yearly taxes that your wife will pay in Brazil: transferts have to be declared in your annual tax report if your wife is brasilian tax resident (I do not know if there is a special tax rate or if it just added to income revenue).

A Brazilian friend tells how she sent a substantial amount of money to Brazil from France for the purchase of an apartment. She sent the money in cash hidden in her daughter's underwear which she was wearing. Her daughter was young and flying alone so in the care of an air hostess. And they got away with it!
It's a great family anecdote but I couldn't possibly recommend it as a course of action.

I asked a tax attorney how to pay my taxes. He couldn't even give me an answer. Hell the RF couldn't even tell me. Therefore given the fact I attempted to get an answer twice, and no one could help I gave up. I send money through XOOM.COM directly to my bank account. The limit is I believe $2,999.99USD a month, and it isn't questioned at all. It is in there within 24-48 hours. You can send it to anyone in Brazil that has a bank account, you will need their CPF and account information, make sure it is accurate otherwise it will probably end up at the Presidential Palace.

Just make sure you have your debit card, right James? Or you damn chip! (Not that you could have a chip without the damn debit card! And if you don't proceed to have an outburst in the bank and rip your documents out of the tellers hands.