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The convictions in the Corpesca case generated noise within the Internal Revenue Service (SII), where the civil servants’ associations took a nosedive against the entity’s national director, the questioned Fernando Barraza.
The decision not to file a complaint in the case of former deputy Marta Isasi, who could not be convicted of tax crimes as requested by the Prosecutor’s Office, with the explanation of the SII as to “that the information collected did not justify initiating a direct criminal action for crimes against him ”, was harshly criticized by the national boards of the Association of Inspectors of the Internal Revenue Service of Chile (AFIICH) and the National Association of Internal Tax Officials of Chile (ANEIICH).
Through a public statement, both unions assured that “Director Barraza has distorted the mission of the SII in all forms and contexts,” by insisting that the entity’s role is only “to collect taxes” and to point out that “the actions penalties will continue to be an exception ”.
“Nothing is more contrary to the truth, since the one who collects the final taxes in Chile is the Treasury, and the role of the Service is to supervise and maximize the compliance of taxpayers’ tax obligations, providing for this the monopoly of legal action, with the objective of ensuring that no one acts over the law in tax matters, ”the groups pointed out.
“We demand an end to the odious differences between common and economic crimes or neck-and-tie crimes, pursuing through the lawsuit all those who are responsible for tax crimes,” they add, putting into question the “Barraza doctrine”, who has has been criticized for his decision not to advance in investigations of political payments and not to file complaints for tax crimes.
“In favor of large companies”
The officials recalled that the performance of the SII under Barraza’s command in the Corpesca case adds to other signals “in favor of large companies, which do not adhere to the law or internal regulations, much less common sense, systematically deteriorating the foundations of the public function ”. In the opinion of the organizations, with Barraza in command of the SII, a “red carpet” has been put on for some companies, reaching “levels of evasion and avoidance that were only seen in dictatorship”.
Among the events, the unions mentioned the “pardon” to Penta and its owners for a tax offense, so they wonder “if a benefit similar to Corpesca and the other companies that committed crime will also be accepted in the future.”
In addition, they question the “tailored” trades so that Barrick Lama, the company that originated the Pascua Lama project, can recover more than 440 million dollars; and the appointment of Harry Ibaceta Rivera as Director of Large Taxpayers, whom they question for “evident conflicts of interest.
Added to this is the “dismissal of the complaint against Carlos Heller for the operation of the Bethia Group to obtain a refund of $ 2,744 million that did not correspond, who also bought the LATAM stake from President Piñera in 2010”.
SII officials finally maintain that “thanks to the national director we have not lost the ‘capacity for astonishment’” and recall that “so grotesque is this supposed ‘doctrine’ that director Barraza argues, that even the current Minister of Finance Ignacio Briones, While serving as Dean of the Adolfo Ibáñez University School of Government, he wrote a column for the newspaper Third published in December 2015, under the title ‘The myopic doctrine of SII’. Perhaps Mr. Briones, in serving as Minister today, will not take action on the matter? We hope that what he wrote in the press in 2015 does not erase it with his elbow and is not an accomplice of everything that is happening behind his back at the SII ”, they point out.
It should be remembered that in the Corpesca case, the SII did file nominative complaints for tax crimes in the case of former senator Jaime Orpis, accusing him of providing 78 ideologically false ballots to Corpesca, although the court finally decided to acquit him for this offense.
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