Overview of the tax rulings of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published between June 16 - 22, 2025:

  • Judgment of May 23, 2025 (9C_58/2025): Direct Federal Tax and State and Municipal Taxes 2021 (Zurich); In dispute is, on the one hand, the tax liability of pension benefits and, on the other hand, the conversion of the lump-sum settlement paid (IV pension back payment) for the determination of the tax rate. From a purely tax law perspective, it is irrelevant in view of the nature of the - taxable - additional payments in question by the IV bodies that these were (partially) used to settle A.'s debts to the B. social welfare office. With regard to the determination of the tax rate for the lump-sum settlement paid, the total IV pension arrears payment must be divided by the number of months and then multiplied by twelve for the conversion to an annual income. According to the clear wording of the law and the case law of the Federal Supreme Court, only one-off payments are eligible for privileged taxation at the pension rate. Any recurring amounts are not to be taken into account in this calculation, but are to be taxed at the normal tax rate. Dismissal of the appeal of taxpayer A.
  • Judgment of May 22, 2025 (9C_640/2024): Direct federal tax and state and municipal taxes 2013 - 2015 (Zurich); tax evasion; The dispute is whether the accusation of tax evasion is justified. A. disputes his beneficial ownership of the assets in question. Whether a usufruct or possibly a fiduciary or other legal relationship is at issue in this regard is not decisive, which is why the corresponding statements are in vain. Rather, the decisive factor is whether the lower court rightly assumed the non-existence of a right of use and considered the offense of tax evasion to be fulfilled. A. did not comply with his duty to cooperate and did not submit any bank statements for the custody account in question, which is why the tax authorities were not able to compare them with the current account of the bank custody account, which in turn made it impossible to draw conclusions about the existence of a usufruct. Dismissal of the appeal of the taxpayer A.

Non-occurrence:

Decisions are listed chronologically by publication date.

Tax topics covered in this post:
Income Tax