Overview of the tax law decisions of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published between September 7 and 13, 2026:
- Judgment of August 20, 2026 (9C_500/2025): Federal, Cantonal, and Municipal Taxes for 2020 and 2021 (Valais); The owner of a shopping center terminated a lease agreement valid through 2027 by mutual agreement on December 28, 2020, and received a lump-sum compensation of approximately CHF 7.8 million in return, which she intended to allocate across the tax periods from 2021 to 2027. The Federal Supreme Court upheld the binding ruling of the lower court, which held that the compensation constituted a new claim arising from the termination agreement and not an advance payment of future rent, and therefore staggered taxation was not an option. It then examined the timing of realization ex officio and noted that, under the accrual method, a fixed and enforceable claim generally does not exist until the time it becomes due. Since the agreement provided for a payment term of 30 days from the date of signing and the credit was posted on January 26, 2021, the compensation was not realized as early as 2020, but rather in its entirety during the 2021 tax period. Partial granting of the appeal and remand for reassessment of the 2020 and 2021 tax periods.
- Judgment of August 27, 2026 (9C_377/2026): Direct Federal Tax and State and Municipal Taxes 2022 (Bern); The issue in dispute is whether the determination of the taxpayer’s taxable income violates federal law. At the heart of the matter is the question of the deductibility of the claimed third-party child care expenses. In the present case, the child’s mother bore the relevant costs, not the taxpayer himself. Furthermore, the taxpayer’s argument—that while the expenses for his son’s third-party childcare were indeed paid by his partner, they were ultimately split equally between them for economic purposes—cannot justify a third-party childcare deduction in the relevant tax context. The taxpayer’s appeal is dismissed.
Non-occurrence:
Decisions are listed chronologically by publication date.
