In the middle, Augusto Pinochet’s daughter, Jacqueline, during a mass in Santiago in August 1999. SANTIAGO LLANQUIN (Associated Press)
Jacqueline Marie Pinochet Hiriart, the youngest of the five children of Augusto Pinochet, who led the bloody dictatorship in Chile between 1973 and 1990, appealed to the Constitutional Court (TC) for considering a tax liability that it said was “disproportionate” and “unfair”. . approximately $4 million, up from the original $240,000. The number dates from 2000 and 2005 and was determined by the Internal Revenue Service (SII), the authority responsible for collecting taxes in the South American country.
The court accepted the handling of the presentation by Pinochet Hiriart’s lawyers, who claimed unconstitutionality on February 7. The judges have only shut down the collections while the admissibility of the case is decided in the coming weeks. If that happens, the TC would discuss the merits of the cause, although the other alternative is for the motion to be dismissed.
Therefore, the submission was allowed for the time being, since it fulfilled the basic formalities of a legal brief. Of the four judges, only one, Rodrigo Pica, opposed dropping the case for the time being.
In the brief submitted to the Constitutional Court, Jacqueline Pinochet claims that according to the liquidation carried out on February 7, 2023, the original net debt “increases by 800%, with interest charged in favor of the Treasury”, resulting in an artificial and disproportionate increase in relation to the Credits to be collected for first category taxes, supplementary global and donations. In addition, there are interest rates, subsequent adjustments and fines. According to her lawyers, the total amount violates her constitutional guarantees “as she is to be forced to pay a disproportionate, unfair and abusive interest rate that more than eightfold the alleged tax liability”.
Jacqueline Pinochet has launched a two-pronged judicial offensive against her debts: one before the Santiago Court of Appeal, which has not yet ruled, and another before the Constitutional Courts to challenge the provision of the Tax Code that allows the collection of the interest.
A tax judgment against you
In September 2022, a finance court ruled that Pinochet’s youngest daughter had failed to “prove the origin and availability of the funds, disbursements and investments that make up the claimed settlements.” Instead, she pointed out that the tax authority “succeeded in sufficiently proving the existence of the alleged income”.
The Tax Court’s ruling on her case confirmed that Pinochet Hiriart had not filed annual income tax returns between 2000, 2001 and 2002. However, the ruling indicated that during the period under review the woman “kept various bank accounts where she regularly received amounts of money and made transfers, and also that she bought a property” in the municipality of Lo Barnechea, one of Santiago’s most affluent neighborhoods , in which she appears as the owner along with four of her children . Also that in 2003 he “received an amount of almost $279,000 in local currency from a third party,” funds that he would have used to purchase real estate.
The judgment points out that in 2006, as part of the investigation into Augusto Pinochet into his multi-million dollar bank accounts at Riggs Bank, which were the subject of criminal investigations in Chile, it was found that his daughter Jacqueline received income that could be considered income, for which you have not filed taxes.
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