Decisions of the Swiss Federal Administrative Court (CW 31 - 2018 )

Overview of the tax law decisions of the Swiss Federal Administrative Court published in the week of 30 July - 5 August 2018.

Judgment of 19 July 2018 (A-7054/2017): Appeal against a decision not to intervene as a result of failure to observe a time limit. The appeal is dismissed.

Judgment of 25 July 2018 (A-3045/2017): Customs; import assessment. Customs tariff; the tariff classification of porridge was in question; the appeal was upheld and rejected by the lower court.

Decisions of the Federal Administrative Court in the area of administrative assistance:

Judgment of 30 July 2018 (A-1488/2018): Administrative assistance (DTA Switzerland - France). On 11 May 2016, the French tax authority (DGFP) submitted a request for administrative assistance to the FTA on the basis of Art. 28 of the DTA CH-FR . The persons concerned by the request were listed as persons presumably liable to pay tax in France, who were identifiable on the basis of lists of several thousand UBS Switzerland AG account numbers enclosed with the request for administrative assistance. In order to check whether these persons had fulfilled their tax obligations for the 2010-2015 tax years, the DGFP requested the FTA to provide the names, dates of birth and account balances of the persons associated with the account numbers. The Federal Administrative Court considered that, based on the agreement of 25 June 2014 on the amendment of the Additional Protocol, the rule according to which a request for administrative assistance does not need to state the name of the person concerned only applies to matters from 1 February 2013. Therefore, only information relating to periods after 1 February 2013 can be exchanged (E. 3.2.3 f.). With regard to the remaining tax periods, it is stated that the criteria developed by the Federal Supreme Court for group requests apply analogously to "list requests" (E. 3.6). Of these criteria mentioned in BGE 143 II 628 E. 5.2 and BGE 143 II 136 E. 6.1.2, the second criterion was not met, according to which the request for administrative assistance must state the applicable tax law and the motives that allow it to be assumed that the taxpayers covered by the group request have not fulfilled their tax obligations. It is not specifically and sufficiently substantiated in law that the taxpayers identifiable by means of the list have not fulfilled their obligations. The fact that they hold an account in Switzerland is not sufficient evidence (E. 3.9.3.3). The appeal is upheld insofar as it is upheld; cf. also the Federal Administrative Court's media release of 31 July 2018 (PDF), the media release and further information are also available here.

Officially published decisions