On 18 August 2017, the Federal Supreme Court published a total of seven rulings dated 24 July 2017, in which it dealt for the first time with the provisions of the Swiss Withholding Tax Act (VStG) concerning the new rules on interest on arrears in the notification procedure, which came into force on 15 February 2017 (see our article of 7 February 2017).
The cases concerned constellations in which the thirty-day deadline for reporting intra-group dividends had not been met. The Federal Supreme Court had suspended the respective proceedings due to the legislative efforts and resumed them after the revision of the VStG came into force.
In its now published rulings, the Federal Supreme Court applies the genuine retroactive effect rule contained in the revised law. (cf. as a substitute BGer 2C_843/2015, E. 2.2.): "According to the revised Art. 16 para. 2bis VStG, no default interest is due if the material conditions for the fulfilment of the tax liability by reporting the taxable benefit are fulfilled either according to Art. 20 VStG and its implementing provisions [...] or the international agreement applicable in the individual case and the implementing provisions to these agreements [...]. If, in such cases, the taxable benefit is not reported, the application for approval of the reporting procedure or the assertion of the claim to a reporting procedure is not made in time, the reporting procedure is granted subject to the imposition of an administrative fine under Art. 64 VStG (Art. 20 para. 3 VStG). The revised Art. 70c VStG expressly provides that Art. 16 para. 2bis and Art. 20 VStG are also applicable to situations concluded before the amendment came into force, unless the tax claim or the claim for interest on arrears is statute-barred or has already been legally established before 1 January 2011. The appellant's appeal [...], proves to be manifestly well founded [...].
As a result, the seven decisions issued on 24 July 2017 partially upheld the appeals (to the extent that they were admissible) and overturned the underlying rulings of the Federal Administrative Court.
The Federal Supreme Court also refrained from (re-)regulating the costs of the proceedings before the courts, pointing out that the contested decisions of the Federal Administrative Court were issued in accordance with the previous case law of the Federal Supreme Court.
The subsequent and largely identical decisions were published on 18 August 2017:
For more information on the reporting procedure, see the articles in our section "Current topics - Reporting procedure for withholding tax".
