Overview of the tax law decisions of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published between 18 - 24 April 2022:
- Judgment of 27 December 2021 (2C_247/2021): State and municipal taxes and direct federal tax 2018 (Bern); The dispute is whether the taxpayer (born 1988), who works as a "business process engineer" at FINMA in Bern, is resident for tax purposes in the canton of Bern or in the canton of St. Gallen. The complainant usually returned to St. Gallen on Friday afternoon and travelled back to Bern to work on Monday morning. It is not known whether he spent his holidays and holidays in St. Gallen. In the canton of St. Gallen, he co-owns a house with his brothers and also engages in social activities. In Bern, he lives in a 3.5 room flat and also has social contacts. However, the non-material interests in the canton of St. Gallen do not outweigh the professional interests in the canton of Bern. Dismissal of the taxpayer's appeal.
- Judgment of 18 March 2022 (2C_884/2021): Withholding tax; payment in kind; the businesslike justification of the transfers by the complainant AG (allegedly) to the director of the Spanish subsidiary was not proven, although increased documentation is required for transactions abroad. Namely, there is no written employment contract between him and the complainant. Next, the transfers were made to an account at a Paris bank where (unlike the director) the complainant's shareholder lives. The complainant was also unable to provide any confirmation that the account belonged to the long-time director.
- Judgment of 28 March 2022 (2C_677/2021): Demand for additional payment of customs duty; domestic transport with an uncleared coach; cabotage; the dispute is whether the taxable person has carried out a prohibited cabotage. The temporary admission procedure for the commercial use of foreign means of domestic transport is excluded. Cabotage is deemed to have taken place if a foreign means of transport picks up passengers in Germany in order to drop them off at another place in Germany. It is undisputed that individual passengers in coach 1 with Italian licence plates left the coach on Swiss territory and subsequently boarded coach 2 with Italian licence plates for the onward journey to their Swiss destination. However, passengers were also transported in coach 2 who had boarded it in Italy, did not change buses in Switzerland and were therefore brought to their Swiss destination by means of a permitted international transport operation. Coach 2 was therefore used simultaneously for a permitted international transport operation and also for a prohibited domestic transport operation. The consequence is that import duties must be levied as soon as only one person is transported by a foreign means of transport as part of an inland transport operation. It is in keeping with the spirit and purpose of Art. 34 of the Customs Ordinance not to allow complete exemption from duty if there is a "mixed" use of a foreign means of transport. Dismissal of the appeal by A. GmbH and its managing director B.
Non-admission / revision requests / write-off:
Decisions are listed chronologically by publication date.
