Chile Forum

I came across an interesting webpage about paying taxes in Chile.

The table below addresses the taxes and mandatory contributions that a medium-size company must pay or withhold in a given year in Chile, as well as measures of administrative burden in paying taxes.

http://www.doingbusiness.org/exploretop ... onomyid=41

It is a little light on details, and I don't believe all those numbers are completely accurate.

admin wrote:It is a little light on details, and I don't believe all those numbers are completely accurate.

Yeah it would be nice if they gave more details. While the numbers may not be completely accurate, do they give a fairly decent ballpark figure to the costs?

[quote="admin"]The other thing is that for foreigners in Chile, as private individuals, you do not pay income tax for the first three years of tax residency in Chile (you can actually get a waver for longer in certain circumstances). [/quote]

When does tax residency begin? Is it based on when you get permanent residency or when you first arrived with temporary residency visa?

Also, does the SII website explain the wavers?

Your tax residency, technically starts when you arrive in the country with the intent to stay. Which obviously is a fairly fuzzy definition. Safe to say it is when you apply for residency at least.

I knew I should not have even mentioned the waver. It is highly specialized and very narrow sets of situation, with a specialized petition to the regional director that most people will never qualify for. Just forget about it. I'll have to dig out some of the examples they have granted in the past, and you will see that it is real long-shot for most people to qualify. It is not just like you fill out a form, and they give you a tax waver. You need a really good reason.

That said, what is likely more useful to everyone is the fact that foreign pensions are not taxable, even after the three year tax holiday in Chile. We have a set of articles being worked on right now covering the tax situation in Chile. Besides income tax, there has been a revaluation of all rural properties. So, a lot of properties that where tax exempt before now have property tax. Still it is nothing to get worked up over. I think on average most of our clients with rural properties had their property tax increased a few thousand pesos a year.

I read here about the three years that a foreigner is free of paying taxes of foreign income. Are we talking about a normal salary here? Because in my case i have my RUT, i subscribed myself on the website of SII as an independend engineer, and the half of my projects are abroad, and payed from abroad also...
I login in with my SII account, i make my boleta with a RUT 99999999-9 for a foreign client (this is what sii told me i should do for foreign clients), and the 10% that is normally payed by the client, is something i should declare myself...

On the other hand, in my country there is at least a severe control of my business every three years. I dont know if sii works like that and if they check the books and corresponding bank account to see what went in and what went out or do they just take in account the invoices i make (boleta de honorario).

Apart from that I almost have no costs at all since plane tickets, hotel etc are all payed for by the client...so in general i have maybe like 10 boletas a year. Is it therefore necessary to have an accountant? Income is the sum of 10 boletas, i don't have VAT to add, and i have no costs...so i suppose it is easy to manage through the website of sii in stead of paying for an accountant?

Accountants are cheap, but for something like that I likly would not bother with one unless you have something complicated or special going on.

A quick question if I may.

If you have investment propertys in the States and you live in Chile, do you pay tax on the income generated, in both Chile and the US?
Also for legal purposes, what peroid of time per year constitutes "living" in Chile?
Eg if you live for 3-4 months in Chile does that meet the definition of permenant resident in Chile?

Thanks in advance for any info.