Overview of the tax law decisions of the Swiss Federal Supreme Court published in the week of 23 - 29 November 2020.

  • Judgement of 16 November 2020 (2C_552/2020): Real estate profit tax; Statutory mortgage 2020 (Jura); Art. 190 StG/JU provides that the real estate profit tax and the property tax on real estate can be secured by a direct statutory mortgage in accordance with Art. 836 (2) ZGB. In the present case, recourse to this was only taken after the service of the tax ruling, service of a reminder and a summons was unsuccessful and the Luxembourg company A. was deleted from the commercial register and the tax could only be collected in this way. In this procedure, no violation of Art. 26 BV or Art. 127 para. 2 BV is apparent. Dismissal of the complaint of the taxable company.
  • Judgement of 18 August 2020 (2C_298/2019): Direct Federal Tax and State and Municipal Taxes 2007-2012 (Valais): Commercial property trading; The X brothers acquired an undeveloped plot of land by means of an advance withdrawal of inheritance. During construction, three apartments were sold, two apartments are occupied by them and four apartments were rented. A, a trained cook and hotelier, also bought a restaurant, which he leased out. The tax authorities qualified the sale, rental and leasing as income from self-employment and levied real estate profit tax on the basis of the transfer from private to business assets. Due to long-term planning and external financing, the taxpayer's complaint regarding the sale proved to be unfounded. However, as no concrete synergies between the hotel business and the leased restaurant (PV) are apparent, the complaint proves to be well-founded in this respect. With regard to the letting, the decision is rejected for a supplementary assessment of the facts by the lower instance.

Non-entry decisions:

Decisions are listed chronologically by publication date.

Tax topics covered in this post:
Income Tax
Property Gains Tax
Other Taxes