Chile’s Senate Rejects Mining Tax Increase

Chile’s opposition-led senate has voted 17 to 15 against increasing taxes on miners. The ruling party has proposed increasing taxes from the current 4% to as much as 9%, depending on companies’ sales margins. With the increase, it expected to raise as much as $700m a year to fund post-quake reconstruction efforts, for which it estimates it will invest a total of $8.4bn over 4 years.