Overview of the tax law decisions of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published in the week of 11 - 17 December 2017.

  • Judgment of 21 November 2017 (2C_123/2016): withholding tax; the subject of the present proceedings was in particular the question whether the amount in dispute was withholding tax and, on the other hand, whether it should be refunded to the complainant; in the present case, the complainant made short sales by selling shares which it did not (yet) own; consequently, it could not obtain a right of use on the dividend date, but only a replacement payment to the extent of the shares or the amount of the tax due. dividends; it was therefore, like the purchasers, "not a holder of rights to participate in the company or a third party close to it"; consequently, the only contractual relationship between the complainant, the purchasers of the shares and the parties to the proceedings as subcustodians of the complainant was that under company law, but not under participation law; the lower court was therefore entitled to verify the existence of a tax object pursuant to Article 2(1)(b) of the Tax Code. The Court of Appeals denied the appellant's claim under Article 4 para. 1 of the VStG; consequently, the amount of CHF 54.67 million is not withholding tax; furthermore, there is no basis for reimbursement of this amount to the appellant; the appellant's appeal thus proves to be unfounded; dismissal of the appeal.
  • Judgment of 4 December 2017 (2C_282/2017): Dispute between the Canton of Geneva and the municipality of Geneva concerning the payment of fines collected by the Canton on behalf of the municipality. Reference to the lower court, which did not respond to the complaint of the municipality.
  • Non-occurrence decisions / inadmissible complaints:

Decisions are listed chronologically by publication date.

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