Overview of the tax law decisions of the Swiss Federal Administrative Court published in the week from 1 - 7 June 2020.
- Judgement of 18 April 2018 (A-592/2016): Withholding tax 2005-2008 (levied); in the procedure of levying and/or reclaiming withholding tax without the taxpayer being able to participate, it is permissible to question respondents or witnesses (if at all permissible), provided that the questioning can only achieve its purpose in this way (for details, see our contribution of 29 April 2018); decision confirmed by the Federal Supreme Court in its judgement of 1 May 2020 (2C_450/2018); see our contribution of 31 May 2020.
- Judgment of 8 April 2020 (A-6884/2018): Customs; proof of origin; refusal to grant duty-free preferential treatment (preferential customs clearance) in connection with two consignments of passenger vehicles, because the exporter was unable to produce documents which would allow preferential treatment; the conditions for a subsequent claim (Art. 12 para. 1 VStrR) are fulfilled, since the Directorate General of Customs (OZD) had wrongly failed to collect customs duties, value added tax (VAT) and automobile taxes; the complainant's appeal is dismissed; decision appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.
- Verdict of 20. April 2020 (A-2304/2019): Value Added Tax (VAT); Benefits to Closely Associated Persons (2012-2015); as no records of benefits to closely associated persons were available, the FTA was entitled to make an estimate taking into account a price that independent third parties would agree; the FTA calculated the third party price applicable to closely associated persons on the sales reported by the companies concerned, less a profit margin of 10% and applying the relevant balance tax rate; In addition to the question of whether an exchange of services for VAT purposes took place at all between the companies in question, the disputed issue was in particular the estimate made by the FTA to determine the third-party price; the method of calculation and application used by the lower instance stands up to BVGer. In the opinion of the BVGer, one of the possible methods of direct taxation (namely the cost-plus method, the price comparison method or the resale price method) may be used to determine a third party price, taking into account the initial situation. The resale price method used by the FTA to calculate the third-party price is perfectly permissible and the estimate is therefore in conformity with federal law. The complainant's appeal is dismissed; for further details see our contribution of 3 May 2020; decision appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.
Decisions are listed chronologically by publication date.
