Overview of the tax rulings of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published between May 13 - 19, 2024:
- Judgment of April 26, 2024 (2C_114/2023): Administrative assistance DTA CH-FR; list request; the complainant raises the question of whether administrative assistance can be provided if the request for administrative assistance relates to a person who died before the entry into force of Art. 18a StAhiG on November 1, 2019, and whether this provision applies to requests for administrative assistance or tax periods prior to November 1, 2019. This question was already decided in the ruling of March 15, 2024 (2C_795/2022) ( see also our article of April 7, 2024). The dispute in this case is whether the FAC was right to confirm that the administrative assistance requested by the requesting authority on May 11, 2016 must be provided with regard to the bank account linked to E., who died in September 2016. The request for administrative assistance of May 11, 2016 was the subject of a landmark ruling of July 26, 2019 (see BGE 146 II 150, see our articles of July 27, 2019, December 8, 2019 and December 4, 2022). The appellant unsuccessfully accuses the FAC of having confirmed the transmission of information even though certain tax periods affected by the request for administrative assistance are time-barred under French law. These objections must be raised before the requesting state. The question of whether information of a deceased person is still of use to the requesting state is also a question of the domestic law of the requesting state. Furthermore, Art. 18a StAhiG is a procedural and not a substantive provision. Dismissal of the appeal by the heirs of E.
- Judgment of April 26, 2024 (2C_912/2022): Administrative assistance DBA CH-IN; analogous legal questions to the judgment of April 26, 20244 (2C_114/2023); dismissal of the appeal of the heirs of the person concerned.
- Judgment of April 30, 224 (9C_213/2023): Cantonal and communal taxes 2020 (Neuchâtel); the (flat-rate) limitation of deductions for health insurance premiums is not unlawful, but is already provided for by Art. 9 para. 2 lit. g StHG. Dismissal of the taxpayer's appeal.
- Judgments of March 26, 2024(9C_661/2022 - intended for publication and 9C_662/2022): Withholding tax; non-cash benefits 2007-2009; At issue in the present case is the start of the default interest period or the date on which the corresponding withholding tax claim(s) arose in connection with various non-cash benefits made in the course of the financial years. Contrary to the lower court, there are no apparent reasons in the present case for not assuming the time of the actual payment or booking and instead basing this on the approval of the annual financial statements. Under certain circumstances, it may be justifiable (as requested by the FTA) to consider the end of the financial year as essential for the due date of monetary benefits. Approval of the FTA's appeal.
- Judgment of April 25, 2024 (9C_636/2023): State and municipal taxes (St. Gallen); The conviction of the taxpayer for possibly intentional completed and attempted tax evasion is supported by the B. The argument that the penalty order violates the principle of prosecution under the Code of Criminal Procedure did not work from the outset, as the criminal proceedings for evasion of cantonal taxes are not subject to the Code of Criminal Procedure in the first place. If the tax authority notifies the accused person that it is accusing them of deliberately making a false declaration and states that this has resulted in a tax reduction, the offense is described in sufficiently concrete terms and the constitutional and convention-based principle of indictment in criminal tax proceedings is satisfied. Dismissal of the taxpayer's appeal in simplified proceedings.
Decisions are listed chronologically by publication date.
