Overview of the tax law decisions of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published in the week of 18 - 24 September 2017.
- Judgment of 24 August 2017 (2C_160/2017, 2C_161/2017) & Judgment of 24 August 2017 (2C_162/2017, 2C_163/2017): Direct Federal Tax and State and Municipal Taxes 2009 (Solothurn); in particular, the question of whether the property in question is to be allocated to private or business assets or whether a lump-sum deduction may be made with regard to costs and premiums or whether the actual costs are to be taken into account in this respect was controversial; in the absence of a sufficient preliminary determination of the facts in accordance with Art. According to Sec. 112 (1) b FSCA, the Federal Supreme Court was not able to examine whether the property was rightly attributed to the private property by the lower instance; thus, the judgment of the lower instance lacked, in particular, an evaluation of the submitted evidence and comments on essential elements of the facts; approval of the appeals; referral to the lower instance to supplement the facts and to provide legal grounds.
- Judgment of 25 August 2017 (2D_7/2016), for official publication Cantonal and communal taxes 2001-2010 (Vaud); remission of tax; with Art. 167 ff DBG, the legislator explicitly did not want to harmonise the law; when applying cantonal law (in this case Art. 231 StG-VD), the authority can be inspired by federal law or apply it in a subsidiary manner; Art. 231 StG-VD does not give rise to a claim for remission of tax; scope of the property guarantee (Art. 26 BV) in tax law: prohibition of confiscatory taxation; not infringed in the present case, since the large tax burden results from the fact that the taxpayer has not saved any amount with a view to payment of the tax for several years, although he could have done so without his assets being completely eliminated as a result; no infringement of economic freedom by the refusal of the decree.
Non-occurrence decisions / inadmissible complaints:
- Judgment of 6 September 2017 (2C_704/2017): State and municipal taxes 2014 (Zurich); the appeal will not be considered.
- Judgment of 7 September 2017 (2C_750/2017): Police costs; the complaint will not be acted upon.
Decisions are listed chronologically by publication date.
