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News > Chile

Chile: Lower House of Parliament Rejects Tax on the Super Rich

  • Chile's lower house of parliament has rejected a wealth tax bill to levy steep tributary responsibilities on multimillionaire incomes.

    Chile's lower house of parliament has rejected a wealth tax bill to levy steep tributary responsibilities on multimillionaire incomes. | Photo: Twitter/@STEPSociety

Published 18 May 2021
Opinion

Due to a lack of quorum, the deputies did not approve the measure but reformed the VAT given the ongoing circumstances of the pandemic.

The plenary of the Chamber of Deputies of Chile rejected this Tuesday due to a lack of quorum, a project through which it sought to establish an exceptional and one-time tax on the "super-rich, or fortunes exceeding 22 million dollars, intended to finance a universal emergency income.

The project had entered the Chilean Lower House in June 2020 at the request of ten deputies from the Left. After its approval, in general, last April 21, it was discussed by the plenary itself, based on a new report from the Constitutional Commission, rendered by the deputy of the Communist Party, Camila Vallejo.

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Chile's Chamber of Deputies Passes Bill To Tax "Super-Rich"

During this morning's debate, the bill only obtained 79 votes in favor of the 92 it needed; 47 deputies voted against it, and ten abstained.

During the discussion, Deputy Ignacio Urrutia called on the right not to give in to "left-wing populist ideas" because, he said, that is what punishes the people at the ballot box.

Meanwhile, parliamentarian Tomás Hirsch said that if the right-wing opposes this project, it means that "it has not understood at all" what the people demanded through their votes.

Camila Vallejo, after the result, said: "the right-wing continues defending its financiers and rejects the tax on the super-rich. In any case, the differentiated VAT is approved and passes to the Senate. There we will reinstate the indication of the wealth tax to continue in the struggle."

"The right continues to defend its financiers and rejects the #TaxOnTheSuperRich. Anyway the differentiated VAT is approved and passes to the Senate. There we will reposition the wealth tax indication to continue in the fight!!!"

The communist deputy Daniel Núñez said as a reaction to the results that "the right-wing uses its veto power to reject the tax on the super-rich," added that, in this way, "it continues defending tooth and nail an abusive distribution of the burden of this society."

As part of the discussion, the transitional reduction of the value-added tax (IVA), set at 19 percent for some basic and essential consumer products until December 2022, was analyzed to reduce the tax burden on middle-class sectors.

The proposal sought to reduce IVA to 10 percent on the delivery and acquisitions of fuels, food for human or animal nutrition, sanitary products, hotel, health, and dental care, aesthetic and integral beauty services, sports services, and establishments (such as gyms), flowers and ornamental plants, and funeral services and companies.

Likewise, it intends to lower to four percent the tax on essential products such as bread, flour, eggs, milk, cheese, fruits, vegetables, legumes, tubers, and cereals.

The IVA would be similarly reduced for medicines for human consumption, prostheses, orthotics and internal implants for disabled persons, tele-assistance and home help services, and books, newspapers, and magazines that do not contain only or mainly advertising.

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