Overview of the tax rulings of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published between November 11 - 17, 2024:
- Judgment of October 25, 2024 (9C_482/2024): VAT (2013-2017); the allegedly taxable and foreign-based complainant carries out online sports betting. On the grounds that the complainant provided electronic services in Switzerland, the FTA entered the complainant in the VAT register with retroactive effect from January 1, 2013 (Art. 10 para. 2 let. b MWSTG in conjunction with Art. 10 para. 1 MWSTV). According to the FTA, the qualification of a service as an electronic service within the meaning of Art. 10 of the VAT Ordinance requires in particular that the service is provided automatically and that human involvement on the part of the service provider is minimal (VAT sector information 13). The fulfillment of this requirement was disputed in this case. The FSC came to the conclusion that although the human interventions claimed by the appellant were of considerable importance, the human involvement in this case took place before or outside of the service provided on a contractual basis. A service relationship is only established when a customer places a bet at the odds offered. According to the Federal Supreme Court, customer support is also not part of the actual service ("merely an associated function" of the [electronic] service) and therefore does not prevent online betting from being classified as an electronic service. Dismissal of the foreign company's appeal.
- Judgment of October 21, 2024 (9C_634/2023): Direct federal tax and state and municipal taxes 2012-2017 (Zurich); at issue was the existence of new facts for the subsequent taxation of imputed rental value and the question of whether underutilization can compensate for offsetting. In the 2011 tax period, in which he had acquired a property in the middle of the year, the taxpayer declared half of the officially determined imputed rental value. In the following tax periods, the taxpayer continued to declare only half of the imputed rental value. In the subsequent tax proceedings, the taxpayer invoked, among other things, the departure of a child in 2012 and claimed a deduction for underutilization. The Federal Supreme Court initially confirmed the existence of new facts for the disputed years and denied a violation of the principle of investigation. It also stated that tax-reducing facts can only be asserted if they are related to the subsequent tax proceedings and are new from the taxpayer's perspective, in that their subsequent assertion is prompted by the subsequent tax reason. The latter was not the case here. Dismissal of the complainant's appeal.
- Judgement of October 9, 2024 (9C_602/2023): Direct federal tax and state and municipal taxes 2019 (Lucerne); at issue is whether the pension from the pension fund of the North Rhine Dental Association qualifies as a life annuity within the meaning of Art. 22 para. 3 DBG or Art. 7 para. 2 StHG or is fully taxable. The cantonal court, taking into account the statutes of the pension fund of the Dental Association, considered that the benefits paid to the taxpayer should be classified as 1st or 2nd pillar benefits for tax purposes. It thus came to the same conclusion as the Federal Supreme Court recently did with regard to similar benefits from the Bavarian Medical Pension Fund (BGE 150 II 202). Dismissal of the taxpayer's appeal.
- Judgment of October 30, 2024 (9C_176/2024): Direct federal tax and cantonal and communal taxes 2020 (Geneva); at issue was the income tax recording of a distribution of a foundation by the tax administration, which had already (partially) subjected the foundation capital to inheritance tax due to the transparent treatment of the foundation. After the first cantonal instance had assumed an inadmissible method dualism, the second instance denied this and confirmed the opinion of the tax administration. The lower instance essentially stated that different taxpayers were affected, namely the community of heirs of the deceased for inheritance tax and the appellant for income tax. In contrast, the FSC held that different taxpayers could not be assumed, especially since the appellant was also part of the community of heirs. Furthermore, the FSC agreed with the appellant and confirmed that the application of an economic approach for inheritance tax and the application of a civil law approach for income tax constituted an inadmissible dualism of methods. The appellant's appeal was upheld.
- Judgment of October 16, 2024 (9C_500/2023): Direct federal tax and cantonal and municipal taxes 2019 (Fribourg); the legal dispute concerns the deduction of maintenance costs for the taxpayer's property. In particular, it concerns whether the deductibility of the advance payments made in 2018 (in the amount of CHF 38,160) for the photovoltaic system for the 2019 tax year was legitimately denied. The cantonal court found that a first down payment of CHF 21,200 had been requested for the work to install a photovoltaic system on the building with an invoice dated May 16, 2018 and paid on June 25, 2018; a second down payment of CHF 16,960 according to an invoice dated June 19, 2018 had been made on October 9, 2018. The invoice with an outstanding amount of CHF 4,714 was issued on December 31, 2018 and paid on April 1, 2019. In the opinion of the cantonal judges, the KStV had rightly not recognized the payments on account of CHF 21,200 and CHF 16,960 as property maintenance costs for the 2019 tax period. In the present case, the Federal Supreme Court confirms that the advance payments were invoiced in 2018 and were due at that time and were therefore rightly not recognized as property maintenance costs for the 2019 tax period. The appeal is dismissed.
- Judgment of October 25, 2024 (9C_456/2024) and judgment of October 25, 2024 (9C_457/2024): Direct federal tax 2021, administrative fine; the administrative fines of CHF 100 each for A.A. and B.A. for repeated failure to submit tax returns (breach of procedural obligations) do not violate federal law. Furthermore, there is no double fine, as both have violated their duty to cooperate (the situation would be different if it were a matter of income components that only affect one spouse, which is not the case here). Dismissal of the taxpayers' two appeals.
Failure to enter:
Decisions are listed chronologically by publication date.
