By Francisco Orellana Rivera, Partner of the Legal and Tax/Customs Defense Area at CCL Auditores Consultores.
Although the Tax Compliance Bill includes several key measures for fiscal revenue, we believe that the main and sustained increase in revenue will come from controlling informality, as well as deterring tax evasion through stricter penalties for tax crimes, strengthening the SII’s audit tools to address aggressive tax planning, and, additionally, an important measure will be the effective application of VAT on purchases made through digital platforms operated by national or foreign companies, whether or not they have domicile or residence in Chile.
On the other hand, the bill estimates raising resources equivalent to 1.5% of GDP; however, there is a significant group of experts who argue that the effectiveness of this level of revenue is not entirely clear, considering that the reports on tax evasion figures used to define the project’s revenue have been questioned, as well as the differences between VAT evasion and income tax evasion.
For this reason, given that there is greater consensus on VAT evasion figures and that it is a tax that is easier to audit, combating this type of evasion could be a more efficient path to achieving this target.