CHILE ESTABLISHES NATIONAL REGISTER OF BENEFICIAL OWNERSHIP
A Significant Step Towards Combating Money Laundering and Tax Evasion
Santiago - Chile has taken a major step towards strengthening its financial regulations with the establishment of a national Register of Beneficial Ownership. The register, maintained by the Chilean Internal Revenue Service (IRS), will contain information on beneficial owners of legal entities, investment funds, and other entities without legal personality.
Who Must Report?
The following parties are required to report information on beneficial owners:
- Legal entities, investment funds, and other entities with no legal personality that are taxpayers under Chile’s Income Tax Law
- Beneficial owners themselves, when requested by the IRS
Required Information
When submitting their reports, the required parties must provide the following information on beneficial owners:
- Name
- Date of birth
- Tax ID or identification card number
- Nationality
- Domicile
- Country of residence
- Background information on the entity they are a beneficial owner of
- Form and date of compliance with the beneficial ownership requirement
Access and Enforcement
State agencies will have full access to the register, while information on beneficial owners’ names and identification numbers will be publicly available only for those who receive subsidies from the state or contract with it.
The IRS has been granted a range of powers to enforce the registry and exercise its functions. A regulation issued by the Ministry of Finance will outline the procedure for providing information to the IRS, while penalties for non-compliance have been established, ranging from approximately $60 to $29,000 per individual not informed, plus fines for repetition.
In addition, a penal sanction of minimum to medium-term imprisonment has been established in cases of false or substantially incomplete information.