At its meeting on 21 March 2018, the Federal Council adopted the dispatch on tax proposal 17 (SV17).
According to the media release of 21 January 2018, the dispatch corresponds to the key parameters that the Federal Council had already set on 31 January 2018 (see our contribution of 31 January 2018).
In addition to the abolition of cantonal status societies, the message provides for the implementation of new and internationally accepted special regulations. In addition, the cantons are to be given financial policy leeway so that they can reduce cantonal taxes on profits if necessary. To this end, the cantons' share of direct federal tax is to be increased from 17% to 21.2%; this also takes into account the most important demand of the cantons and municipalities (cf. in this respect our contributions of 9 June 2017, 25 June 2017, 6 September 2017 and 10 September 2017).
The following list (in accordance with the dispatch on the tax law on SV 17) provides an overview of the central measures:
- Abolition of the regulations for status societies;
- mandatory introduction of a patent box at cantonal level;
- optional introduction of additional deductions for research and development (R&D) at cantonal level;
- Increase in the canton's share of direct federal tax from 17% to 21.2%;
- Consideration of the cities and municipalities in connection with the increase in the cantonal share;
- Adjustments in financial equalisation (new weighting of company profits in resource equalisation and introduction of temporary supplementary contributions);
- Introduction of a cap on profit tax relief, which is binding on the cantons and stipulates that a company must pay tax on at least 30% of its taxable profit (which it would have reported if the special rules had not been applied)
- Increase in the taxation of dividends to 70% for the Confederation and to at least 70% for the cantons;
- Increase of the minimum requirements for family allowances by 30 francs.
Ideally, the SV17 can be passed by parliament in the autumn session 2018. If no referendum is held, the first measures could come into force as early as the beginning of 2019 and the majority of the measures from 2020.
The following documents were adopted and published:
All documents and the corresponding media release are available here.
