According to the message on an amendment to the Withholding Tax Act of 28 March 2018, the claim for a refund of withholding tax in the event of failure to declare a benefit subject to withholding tax in the tax return will no longer be forfeited if a subsequent declaration is made or the tax authorities offset the benefit.
According to the embassy, the prerequisite is that the subsequent declaration or set-off is made before the deadline for objection to the assessment has expired and the original non-declaration was negligent. This is to avoid double taxation of income tax and withholding tax in the event of negligent non-declaration. The hedging purpose of the withholding tax remains intact.
The message also takes into account the concern of Daniela Schneeberger's motion "No forfeiture of withholding tax" (16.3797).
The message was adopted by the Council of States after the Committee for Economic Affairs and Taxes of the Council of States (WAK-S) unanimously requested that the Schneeberger motion be rejected in favour of the message, because the request could already be met with the adoption of the revision of the Withholding Tax Act (18.030) (see our contribution of 22 September 2018).
The National Council had already adopted the message on 29 May 2018 with deviating resolutions (minutes of the National Council). The Council of States had then discussed the message on 10 September 2018 and also adopted it with deviations (Minutes of the Council of States). The National Council finally approved the draft of the Council of States on 20 September 2018 (Minutes of the National Council). With the revised Withholding Tax Act, claims should be able to be asserted retroactively only for proceedings that have not yet been concluded with legal effect (cf. the media release of 20 September 2018). The template is thus cleaned up.
The entire parliamentary business with extensive documents is available here.
