For the first time, the Federal Tax Administration (FTA) has transmitted information on tax rulings to the partner states of the spontaneous exchange of information (SIA).
As can be seen from the FTA's media release of 8 May 2018, the FTA has sent 82 notifications to a total of 41 countries (including in particular Germany, France, Great Britain, the Netherlands and Russia) in a first tranche. The transmission concerns preliminary tax assessments that were still effective on 1 January 2018.
The background to the transmitted preliminary tax assessments is the following: Switzerland has ratified the Administrative Assistance Convention of the Council of Europe and the OECD and, within the framework of the BEPS project, has undertaken to send reports on certain preliminary tax assessments to the partner states without being requested to do so (cf. Art. 9 StAhiV). As a result, each country must identify the advance tax assessments and the recipient states on its own initiative and forward the information to the partner states (Art. 10 and 13 StAhiV). The partner states of the Convention have agreed to spontaneously exchange the content of tax assessments in the form of a template. The advance tax assessments themselves are not exchanged. Tax assessments issued in Switzerland by the cantonal tax administrations must be forwarded by the cantons to the FTA. The FTA carries out the administrative assistance procedure and transmits rulings to the partner states as part of the SIA.
The press release is available here.
