A-35-30

On February 19, 2025, the Federal Council sent the message to Parliament concerning the project to extend the automatic international exchange of information in tax matters (AIE) to crypto-assets (the Message) by adopting a framework for the declaration of crypto-assets (CDA). In addition to the CDC, the Message proposes additions and amendments to the law (P-LEAR) and the ordinance (P-OEAR) on the automatic exchange of information. The new rules are expected to come into force on January 1, 2026, for[...]

In a ruling intended for publication, the Swiss Federal Supreme Court, against the advice of the Federal Tax Administration, exempts a holding company from stamp duty (i) in the case of an intra-group transfer of shareholdings that do not meet the restructuring conditions set out in the LIFD and (ii) following the granting of shareholdings to employees free of charge (9C_168/2023, 9C_176/2023 of 25 November 2024). The case concerns a holding company carrying out two transactions which the Federal Tax[...]

The Swiss Federal Supreme Court has ruled that tax secrecy takes precedence over the principle of transparency (ruling intended for publication 1C_272/2022, delivered in open court by four votes to one). The origin of this ruling lies in the request of the NGO Society for Threatened Peoples, based on the Transparency Act (LTrans). The NGO was asking the Federal Office of Customs and Border Protection (FOCB) for access to detailed statistics on gold imports by major Swiss importers, for the[...]

When a foreign company holding a bank account has elected domicile with an agent in Switzerland in the context of an administrative assistance procedure, can the Federal Tax Administration (FTA) use the edict procedure to inform its beneficial owner of the existence of the procedure? The Swiss Federal Supreme Court answered this question in the affirmative in a ruling dated November 8, 2022 (2C_772/2021 and 2C_773/2021). The references of the company's bank accounts appeared on the list appended by France[...]