Chile

Corporate - Other issues

Last reviewed - 17 July 2024

Reporting on investments in Chile and abroad

Chilean foreign investment

Taxpayers must file an annual affidavit informing all the investments performed during the previous year, pointing out the amount, kind of investment, country, purpose, and any other additional information the Chilean IRS may require.

Low-tax jurisdictions

In order to qualify as a low-tax jurisdiction or preferential tax regime, the relevant territory must comply with two or more of the requirements set forth in Article 41 H of Income Tax Law. The Chilean IRS issued Resolution N° 124 of 2017, which provides a list of countries considered as low-tax jurisdictions or preferential tax regimes that fall under Article 41 H.

Please note that OECD member countries will never be considered as low-tax jurisdictions or preferential tax regimes.

Foreign Account Tax Compliance Act (FATCA) agreement

On 5 March 2014, Chile entered into a bilateral intergovernmental agreement (IGA) with the United States (US) in order to comply with FATCA.

Chile signed a Model 2 IGA, which is a non-reciprocal exchange of information agreement. The execution of this agreement will imply that Chilean financial institutions with US account holders, in order to avoid paying the 30% rate WHT that FATCA establishes, will have to register with the US Treasury and US IRS and sign a Foreign Financial Institutions Agreement with them in order to be FATCA compliant.

In this context, each Chilean financial institution that enters into these agreements with the US tax authorities will be required to report to the US IRS directly the individual US account holder’s information.

In accordance with the Chilean Bank Secrecy Law, Chilean financial institutions, in respect to those account holders that do not authorise them to disclose their account information to the US IRS, will only be able to disclose their information in aggregate. This will mean that the US IRS, in order to obtain the specific information of those US account holders, will need to request it directly from the Chilean IRS, under the terms of the treaty between both countries.

Taxation applicable to funds

Public investment funds, private investment funds, and mutual funds are not considered as FCT payers, but their managing entities need to keep a number of registries in order to determine the taxation applicable to their quota holders regarding the amounts distributed by the fund.

Taxation of funds is similar to taxation of shares of a stock corporation. In this sense, dividends distribution would be treated as a distribution from a stock corporation subject to PIS. In case of capital gains, it would be considered as an alienation of shares of a stock corporation, in this sense, alienation could be tax exempted if funds are regularly traded or 90% or more of their portfolio is invested in regularly traded securities.

Please bear in mind that quota holders that are not domiciled or resident in Chile are just subject to a sole tax rated 10% or tax exempted in case they invest in public investments funds that have 80% of their assets located abroad.