Brazil’s President Dilma Rousseff Thursday signed into law new legislation that extends simplified tax rules for small businesses to 142 activities in the country’s service sector. The measure, which is scheduled to take effect in 2015, is seen benefitting up to 450,000 small businesses with annual revenues of up to $1.6 million. Under the rules, small businesses in the service sector, including activities such as legal and health services, will pay tax rates of between 17% and 23%. In addition to simplifying tax rules for small business, the bill sanctioned Thursday also prohibits larger business from advance deduction of the state level ICMS goods and services tax from transaction with smaller suppliers, a practice known as tax subsitution.