The director of the Internal Revenue Service (SII) of Chile, Fernando Barraza, assured that the controversial sale in the British Virgin Islands of a mine by the family of the country’s president, Sebastian Piñera, “Did not imply tax advantages.”
“We have no answer so far as to what is the motivation for this operation that, in the way it was structured, the truth is that having done it abroad did not imply tax advantages with the regulations in force at the time” said the official.
Barraza appeared this Thursday in the parliamentary commission that studies the accusation presented by the opposition to dismiss Piñera for that financial operation, revealed in the worldwide investigation of Pandora’s papers.
The publication revealed alleged irregularities in the sale of Minera Dominga by a company owned by Piñera’s children in the British Virgin Islands, just nine months after he took office for his first term (2010-2014).
As revealed by the International Consortium of Investigative Journalists (ICIJ), the sale of the project to the businessman and friend of the presidential family Carlos Alberto Délano had to take place in three installments, but the last one was conditional on the area not being declared of environmental protection, a decision that depended on Piñera.
“He complied with informing the Internal Revenue Service of both the operation and the remittances that entered the country. From that perspective, the tax obligation is fulfilled ”, he added.
Deputies from all opposition parties presented last week a constitutional accusation against the president, 71 years old and owner of the fourth largest fortune in Chile, which is first studied by a commission of five deputies before going to the plenary session of Congress.
“The causes of this constitutional accusation are two: one, because the president has openly infringed the Constitution in relation to the principle of probity and, secondly, for seriously compromising the honor of the Nation”, announced the socialist deputy Jaime Naranjo at the time to present the accusation.
It is a historic process because for the second time in his term, Piñera faces a request for dismissal after which he failed in November 2019 for his alleged responsibility for the human rights violations registered during the social outbreak.
In addition, he is the second Chilean president in office to face impeachment, after the case that was dismissed against Carlos Ibáñez del Campo in 1956.
The objective is that the accusatory document, which will foreseeably have the votes in the Lower House, reaches the Senate – the body that acts as a judge – before the presidential elections on November 21.
The impeachment trial, which may lead to the dismissal or disqualification from holding public office of Piñera, joins the investigation opened last week by the Chilean Prosecutor’s Office for bribery and tax crimes in the same financial operation.
The president defends that he dissociated himself from his businesses through blind trusts in 2009 and claims that what was revealed in Pandora’s papers was already investigated and dismissed in 2017.
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