Overview of tax law decisions of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published between June 12 - 18, 2023:
- Judgment of May 24, 2023 (9C_93/2023): Staats- und Gemeindesteuern 2016 (Basel-Stadt); in dispute is the deductibility of costs for property management by third parties. The complainant is of the opinion that the lower instance has defined this term too narrowly. The lower court considered, on the basis of the evidence, that on the basis of the complainant's explanations and the documents submitted by him, it could not be determined to what extent the claimed costs were at all related to the property management. This assessment of the evidence is binding for the Federal Supreme Court. The offsetting from the release of the provisions of CHF 10,000 per property was rightly made. Dismissal of the taxpayer's appeal.
- Judgment of May 15, 2023 (9C_56/2023): Withholding tax; in this case, the Federal Supreme Court denied the managing director of A. GmbH the right to file a lawsuit against the determination of a monetary benefit. This was due to the bankruptcy of A. GmbH, which was opened during the proceedings, and the resulting transfer of the power to bring the action to the bankruptcy trustee. Dismissal of the complaint.
- Judgment of 24 May 2023 (9C_166/2023): Real estate gains tax 2017-2018 (Basel-Land); dismissal of the appeal of a stock corporation (AG) which, for the purpose of purchasing, building over and selling condominium units, merged with a limited liability company (GmbH) to form a consortium (simple partnership) and complained before the Federal Supreme Court (BGer) of the obviously incorrect determination of the facts by the lower court with regard to insufficiently documented expenses as well as a violation of the right to be heard.
- Judgment of May 24, 2023 (9C_652/2022): Cantonal and communal taxes 2019 (Geneva); the complainant A. has been living separately from his wife since 2016, the divorce was finalized in 2020. The marriage resulted in two children, for whom A. made court-determined and tax-deductible maintenance contributions in the amount of CHF 650 per month. The custody is alternating. The question in dispute in the present case is whether A. is to be granted the married tax rate and half of the social security deductions. The Federal Supreme Court denied this in accordance with its previous practice and by analogy with the direct federal tax (despite slightly different wording of the Geneva law). In the case of separated or divorced parents, a 50/50 split of the social deductions is only possible if both parents are equally responsible for the maintenance of the children and no maintenance contributions are paid. The Federal Supreme Court justifies this in particular with the fact that in the case of the parent providing maintenance, the maintenance payment is already deductible for tax purposes and that granting the social deductions in addition would result in a double deductibility. The Federal Supreme Court also applied the same reasoning with regard to the married tax rate. Dismissal of the taxpayer's appeal.
- Judgment of May 24, 2023 (9C_653/2022): Direct Federal Tax and Cantonal and Municipal Taxes 2017 (Valais); in the present case, the main issue in dispute is whether the costs claimed by the taxpayers for the demolition and reconstruction of the garage on their property constitute deductible maintenance costs. According to the relevant case law, repairs to remedy defects discovered only after the acquisition of a property cannot be considered deductible maintenance costs within the meaning of Art. 32 para. 2 DBG, but constitute additional investments. For its part, the competent cantonal tax authority also argued that the work carried out in the present case was equivalent to a new building. The BGer points out that the question whether the hidden defects mentioned by the complainants made the work carried out necessary is not decisive in the present case. The taxpayers demolished and rebuilt their garage on the property. Thus, according to the Federal Supreme Court, they have carried out work that is to be considered merely as investment costs within the meaning of Art. 34 lit. d DBG. Dismissal of the taxpayers' appeal.
Non-occurrence / write-off:
Decisions are listed chronologically by publication date.
