Affected measures to face Covid-19 in Chile

The Covid-19 has been the great global concern for this first semester of the year 2020, which forced the authorities of each country to refocus their policies on the situation imposed by the pandemic. In this sense, Chile has been adopting different measures to face this dispute, the main ones being in the labor sphere, introducing for this purpose Law 21,227 or “Employment Protection Law”, which empowers employers to suspend employment contracts because the nature of the agreed services have been impossible to carry out; Or, adopt a pact to reduce working hours, all of them to avoid the dismissal of workers due to the serious economic crisis in which the economic actors of a whole country have been immersed.

On the other hand, important modifications have been introduced to its tax legislation, and measures must be adopted to facilitate taxpayers to carry out their obligations to the State of Chile, some of them being an extension of the payment of taxes, particularly for small and medium-sized companies, in which case, VAT payments are postponed compared to the months of April, May and June of this year, among others.

Both the State of Chile and the country’s financial institutions have been forced to implement measures to maintain economic activity in the country, promoting the “Covid-19 Special Credit Program” that will come to the rescue of micro, small and medium-sized companies in the country, affected by the health crisis. In total, the plan includes a state guarantee of 3,000 million dollars, which will be transferred to SMEs through banks, under preferential conditions of interest and terms, which will have state supervision. Continuing with the facilities, measures have been adopted to comply with the administrative obligations of both companies and individuals, an example of which is the postponement in the payment of the movement permit, as well as the fact that the legislative power is being evaluated. Introduce a Law that postpones the payment of basic necessities for life, as the light would come.

A Covid-19 bond was approved for the population in greatest need so that they can access basic food needs.

Mario Cayupán, Auren Chile