The Federal Tax Administration published its 2023 activity report on April 11, 2024. This explains the federal tax revenue and the content of tax policy transactions.
Tax revenue of around CHF 62 billion in 2023 is in line with the forecast and exceeds the previous year by almost CHF 7 billion. The majority of this is made up of revenue from direct federal tax (approx. 28 billion) and value added tax (approx. 25 billion).
VAT revenue in 2023 increased by around CHF 559 million compared to the previous year, but was around 1% lower than budgeted. VAT controls led to net revenue of around CHF 172 million. The number of taxable persons who submit their VAT returns online increased to around 94% in 2023 (compared to 92% in the previous year). Since January 1, 2024, electronic billing has been provided for in the VAT Act (Art. 65a) and the VAT Ordinance (Art. 123a), with a transitional period of one year, i.e. until the end of 2024, for taxable persons with paper statements (Art. 166c VAT Ordinance). Parliament adopted the partial revision of the VAT Act in June 2023. The referendum deadline expired unused on October 5, 2023. Entry into force is planned for January 1, 2025.
Direct federal tax receipts were almost CHF 700 million above the 2023 budget and exceeded the previous year's receipts by CHF 300 million. In 2023, the principle for accounting for direct federal tax was changed. The cash principle previously applied was replaced by the debit or receivable principle.
Withholding tax receipts of a good CHF 6.4 billion are around CHF 200 million below budget. Both receipts and refunds fell in 2023 compared to the previous year. The significantly higher income compared to the previous year was achieved primarily due to a reversal of the provision in the amount of CHF 1.9 billion.
Revenue from stamp duties fell by CHF 302 million to around CHF 2.1 billion. This decline is mainly due to the CHF 287 million lower revenue from sales tax. Overall, revenue from stamp duties is around CHF 200 million below budget.
The USA, France, Austria, South Korea and Israel submitted the most administrative assistance requests to Switzerland in 2023. There were significantly fewer incoming FATCA requests in 2023 than in previous years because the USA completed the processing of the accumulated reporting years. As part of the AEOI, the FTA exchanged information on financial accounts with 104 partner states in September 2023. Kazakhstan, the Maldives and Oman were added to the 101 previous countries. Switzerland exchanged data with 78 countries. Switzerland received information from 25 countries, but did not send any because the countries either do not yet meet international confidentiality and data security requirements (13) or voluntarily refrain from providing data (12). No data was exchanged with Russia in 2023 either.
As part of CbCR, the FTA sent reports from a total of 158 groups for the 2021 tax period to a total of 69 partner states.
Finally, the activity report provides an overview of various tax policy issues as well as reports and publications.
The activity report is available here.
