Federal Act on Value Added Tax

¹The Con­fed­er­a­tion shall levy a gen­er­al con­sump­tion tax based on the sys­tem of net all-phase tax­a­tion with in­put tax de­duc­tion (Value Ad­ded Tax). The pur­pose of the tax is to tax non-busi­ness end use on Swiss ter­rit­ory.

²As Value Ad­ded Tax, it levies:

a.

a tax on goods and ser­vices sup­plied for con­sid­er­a­tion by tax­able per­sons on Swiss ter­rit­ory (do­mest­ic tax);

b.

a tax on the ac­quis­i­tion by re­cip­i­ents on Swiss ter­rit­ory of sup­plies from busi­nesses dom­i­ciled abroad (ac­quis­i­tion tax);

c.

a tax on the im­port of goods (im­port tax).

³ The tax is levied on the fol­low­ing prin­ciples:

a.

com­pet­it­ive neut­ral­ity;

b.

ef­fi­ciency of pay­ment and im­pos­i­tion;

c.

trans­fer­ab­il­ity.

¹Tick­et taxes and taxes on the trans­fer of title that are im­posed by the can­tons and com­munes do not qual­i­fy as taxes of the same nature as those defined in Art­icle 134 of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion.

²They may be im­posed to the ex­tent they do not in­clude Value Ad­ded Tax in their as­sess­ment basis.

In this Act:

a.

Swiss ter­rit­ory means the ter­rit­ory of the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion to­geth­er with the cus­toms en­claves ac­cord­ing to Art­icle 3 para­graph 2 of the Cus­toms Act of 18 March 2005¹ (CustA).

b.

Goods means mov­able and im­mov­able ob­jects and elec­tri­city, gas, heat­ing, re­fri­ger­a­tion and the like.

c.

Sup­ply means the con­ces­sion of a us­able eco­nom­ic as­set to a third party in ex­pect­a­tion of a con­sid­er­a­tion, even if it is re­quired by law or based on an of­fi­cial or­der.

d.

Sup­ply of goods means:

1.

the trans­fer of the power to dis­pose of a good com­mer­cially in one’s own name;

2.

the de­liv­ery of a good on which work has been per­formed, even if the good is not altered by the work, but only tested, cal­ib­rated, reg­u­lated, checked for its func­tion or has been treated in an­oth­er way;

3.

mak­ing a good avail­able for use or ex­ploit­a­tion.

e.

Sup­ply of ser­vices means every sup­ply that is not a sup­ply of goods; a sup­ply of ser­vices is also made if:

1.

in­tan­gible as­sets and rights are made avail­able;

2.

an ac­tion is omit­ted or an ac­tion or a situ­ation is tol­er­ated.

f.

Con­sid­er­a­tion means an as­set which the re­cip­i­ent or, in place of the re­cip­i­ent, a third party ex­pends in re­turn for re­ceipt of a sup­ply.

g.²

Sov­er­eign activ­ity means an activ­ity of a pub­lic au­thor­ity or of a per­son or or­gan­isa­tion act­ing for a pub­lic au­thor­ity without busi­ness char­ac­ter, in par­tic­u­lar where it is not mar­ket­able and not in com­pet­i­tion with activ­it­ies of private sup­pli­ers, even if fees, con­tri­bu­tions or oth­er charges are levied for it.

h.³

Closely re­lated per­sons means:

1.

the own­ers of at least 20 per cent of the nom­in­al or ba­sic cap­it­al of a busi­ness or of an equi­val­ent par­ti­cip­a­tion in a part­ner­ship, or per­sons as­so­ci­ated with them;

2.

found­a­tions and as­so­ci­ations with which there is a par­tic­u­larly close eco­nom­ic, con­trac­tu­al or per­son­al re­la­tion­ship; pen­sion schemes are not re­garded as closely re­lated per­sons.

i.⁴

dona­tion means a vol­un­tary con­tri­bu­tion with the in­ten­tion of en­rich­ing the re­cip­i­ent without ex­pect­a­tion of a con­sid­er­a­tion in the VAT sense; a con­tri­bu­tion also qual­i­fies as a dona­tion if:

1.

the con­tri­bu­tion is men­tioned on one or more oc­ca­sions in a pub­lic­a­tion in neut­ral form, even if the name or the logo of the donor is used;

2.

it is a con­tri­bu­tion by pass­ive mem­bers and by pat­rons to as­so­ci­ations or to char­it­able or­gan­isa­tions; con­tri­bu­tions by pat­rons to char­it­able or­gan­isa­tions are also deemed to be dona­tions if the char­it­able or­gan­isa­tion vol­un­tar­ily grants its pat­rons ad­vant­ages in terms of its art­icles provided it in­forms the pat­ron that they have no right to be gran­ted the ad­vant­ages.

j.

Char­it­able or­gan­isa­tion means an or­gan­isa­tion which ful­fils the re­quire­ments that ap­ply for Dir­ect Fed­er­al Tax pur­su­ant to Art­icle 56 let­ter g DFTA.

k.

In­voice means any doc­u­ment by which the con­sid­er­a­tion for a sup­ply is settled with a third party, ir­re­spect­ive of how the doc­u­ment is titled in busi­ness trans­ac­tions.

¹As long as the val­ley areas of Sam­naun and Sam­puoir re­main out­side Swiss cus­toms ter­rit­ory, this Act ap­plies in both val­ley areas only to ser­vices.¹

²The loss of tax rev­en­ue suffered by the Con­fed­er­a­tion as a res­ult of para­graph 1 must be com­pensated for by the com­munes of Sam­naun and Valsot.²

³The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the de­tails in con­sulta­tion with the com­munes of Sam­naun and Valsot. In do­ing so it shall take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­count of the sav­ings res­ult­ing from the lower cost of levy­ing the tax.³

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide on the ad­just­ment of the Swiss franc amounts men­tioned in Art­icles 31 para­graph 2 let­ter c, 37 para­graph 1, 38 para­graph 1 and 45 para­graph 2 let­ter b, as soon as the Swiss con­sumer price in­dex has in­creased by more than 30 per cent since the most re­cent ad­just­ment.

¹The passing on of the tax is based on agree­ments gov­erned by private law.

²The civil courts are com­pet­ent to judge dis­putes about the passing on of the tax.

¹The place of sup­ply of goods is the place where:

a.

the good is loc­ated at the time of trans­fer of the power to dis­pose com­mer­cially of it, of its de­liv­ery or of its be­ing made avail­able for use or ex­ploit­a­tion;

b.

the trans­port or dis­patch of the good to the cus­tom­er or to a third party on his in­struc­tions be­gins.

²The place of sup­ply of elec­tri­city by cable, gas via the nat­ur­al gas dis­tri­bu­tion net­work or dis­trict heat­ing is deemed to be the place at which the re­cip­i­ents of the sup­ply have their re­gistered of­fice or a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment for which the sup­ply is made, or, in the ab­sence of such a re­gistered of­fice or such a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment, the place where the elec­tri­city, gas or dis­trict heat­ing is ac­tu­ally used or con­sumed.¹

³In the case of the sup­ply of a good from abroad to Swiss ter­rit­ory, the place of sup­ply is deemed to be on Swiss ter­rit­ory, provided the sup­pli­er:

a.

has au­thor­isa­tion from the Fed­er­al Tax Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FTA) to im­port the good in its own name (de­clar­a­tion of sub­or­din­a­tion), and does not waive au­thor­isa­tion at the time of im­port; or

b.

makes sup­plies of goods un­der para­graph 1 let­ter b of the pre­ced­ing art­icle that are ex­empt from im­port tax un­der Art­icle 53 para­graph 1 let­ter a be­cause of the in­sig­ni­fic­ant tax amount, and makes a min­im­um turnover of 100 000 francs per year there­from.²

¹The place of sup­ply of a ser­vice is deemed, sub­ject to para­graph 2, to be the place at which the re­cip­i­ent of the ser­vice has its re­gistered of­fice or a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment for which the ser­vice is provided, or in the ab­sence of such a re­gistered of­fice or such a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment, its dom­i­cile or the place of his nor­mal abode.

²The place of sup­ply of the fol­low­ing ser­vices is deemed to be:

a.

for ser­vices that are typ­ic­ally sup­plied dir­ectly in the phys­ic­al pres­ence of in­di­vidu­als, even if ex­cep­tion­ally they are sup­plied at a dis­tance: the place where the per­son sup­ply­ing the ser­vice has his re­gistered of­fice or a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment, or in the ab­sence of such a re­gistered of­fice or such a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment the dom­i­cile or the place from which the per­son works; such ser­vices are in par­tic­u­lar: heal­ing treat­ments, ther­apies, nurs­ing, per­son­al hy­giene, mar­riage, fam­ily and life coun­selling, so­cial ser­vices and so­cial wel­fare ser­vices and child and youth care;

b.

for ser­vices sup­plied by travel agen­cies and event or­gan­isers: the place where the per­son sup­ply­ing the ser­vice has his re­gistered of­fice or a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment, or, in the ab­sence of such a re­gistered of­fice or such a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment, the dom­i­cile or the place from which the per­son works;

c.

for ser­vices in the area of cul­ture, the arts, sport, the sci­ence, schol­ar­ship, en­ter­tain­ment or sim­il­ar ser­vices, in­clud­ing ser­vices of the event or­gan­iser and re­lated ser­vices, if ap­plic­able: the place where these activ­it­ies are ac­tu­ally per­formed;

d.

for res­taur­ant sup­plies: the place where the sup­ply is ac­tu­ally made;

e.

for pas­sen­ger trans­port ser­vices: the place where trans­port ac­tu­ally takes place, as meas­ured by the dis­tance trav­elled; in the case of cross-bor­der trans­port, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may or­der that short in­tern­al dis­tances may count as for­eign and short dis­tances abroad as in­tern­al dis­tances;

f.

for ser­vices in con­nec­tion with im­mov­able prop­erty: the place where the prop­erty is situ­ated; such ser­vices are in par­tic­u­lar: broker­age, man­age­ment, sur­vey and valu­ation of the prop­erty, ser­vices in con­nec­tion with the pur­chase or cre­ation of rights in rem, ser­vices in con­nec­tion with the pre­par­a­tion or the co­ordin­a­tion of con­struc­tion ser­vices, such as ar­chi­tec­tur­al, en­gin­eer­ing and con­struc­tion su­per­vi­sion ser­vices, sur­veil­lance of prop­er­ties and build­ings and ac­com­mod­a­tion ser­vices;

g.

for ser­vices in the area of in­ter­na­tion­al de­vel­op­ment co­oper­a­tion and hu­man­it­ari­an help: the place for which the ser­vice is destined.

In or­der to avoid a dis­tor­tion of com­pet­i­tion due to the double tax­a­tion or non-tax­a­tion of cross-bor­der sup­plies, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil may, in di­ver­gence from Art­icle 3, reg­u­late the defin­i­tion of sup­plies of goods and ser­vices and, in di­ver­gence from Art­icles 7 and 8, de­term­ine the place of sup­ply.

¹Any per­son, ir­re­spect­ive of leg­al form, ob­jects and in­ten­tion to make a profit, is li­able to the tax if that per­son car­ries on a busi­ness and:

a.

makes sup­plies on Swiss ter­rit­ory through that busi­ness; or

b.

has its re­gistered of­fice, dom­i­cile or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment on Swiss ter­rit­ory.¹

^1bisA per­son car­ries on a busi­ness if he:

a.

in­de­pend­ently per­forms a pro­fes­sion­al or com­mer­cial activ­ity with the aim of sus­tain­ably earn­ing in­come from sup­plies, ir­re­spect­ive of the amount of the in­flow of funds that do not qual­i­fy as a con­sid­er­a­tion un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2; and

b.

acts ex­tern­ally un­der his own name.²

^1terThe pur­chase, hold­ing and sale of in­terests un­der Art­icle 29 para­graphs 2 and 3 qual­i­fies as a busi­ness activ­ity.³

²Ex­empt from tax li­ab­il­ity un­der para­graph 1 is any per­son who:

a.

with­in one year gen­er­ates on Swiss ter­rit­ory and abroad turnover from sup­plies of less than 100,000 francs that are not ex­empt from the tax without cred­it un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2;

b.

car­ries on a busi­ness based abroad that ex­clus­ively makes one or more of the fol­low­ing types of sup­plies on Swiss ter­rit­ory ir­re­spect­ive of turnover:

1.

sup­plies ex­empt from the tax,

2.

ser­vices whose place of sup­ply in terms of Art­icle 8 para­graph 1 is loc­ated on Swiss ter­rit­ory; not ex­empt from tax li­ab­il­ity is, however, any per­son who sup­plies tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion or elec­tron­ic ser­vices to re­cip­i­ents who are not li­able to the tax,

3.

sup­plies of elec­tri­city in cables, gas via the nat­ur­al gas dis­tri­bu­tion net­work and dis­trict heat­ing to per­sons li­able to the tax on Swiss ter­rit­ory;

c.

as a non-profit, vol­un­tar­ily-run sport­ing or cul­tur­al as­so­ci­ation or as a char­it­able or­gan­isa­tion gen­er­ates on Swiss ter­rit­ory and abroad with­in one year a turnover from sup­plies of less than 150,000 francs that are not ex­empt from the tax without cred­it un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2.⁴

^2bisThe turnover is cal­cu­lated on the basis of the agreed con­sid­er­a­tions without the tax.⁵

³The place of busi­ness on Swiss ter­rit­ory and all do­mest­ic per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ments to­geth­er rep­res­ent a single tax­able per­son.

¹Any per­son who car­ries on a busi­ness and is ex­empt from tax li­ab­il­ity un­der Art­icle 10 para­graph 2 or 12 para­graph 3 has the right to waive ex­emp­tion from tax li­ab­il­ity.

²Ex­emp­tion from tax li­ab­il­ity must be waived for at least one tax peri­od.

¹Among the pub­lic au­thor­it­ies, tax­able per­sons are the autonom­ous agen­cies of the Con­fed­er­a­tion, can­tons and com­munes and the oth­er pub­lic law in­sti­tu­tions.

²Agen­cies may com­bine as a single tax­able per­son. The com­bin­a­tion may be elec­ted for at the be­gin­ning of any tax peri­od. It must be re­tained for at least one tax peri­od.

³A tax­able per­son that is part of a pub­lic au­thor­ity is ex­empt from tax li­ab­il­ity as long as less than 100,000 francs turnover per year de­rive from tax­able sup­plies to per­sons oth­er than pub­lic au­thor­it­ies. The turnover is meas­ured by the agreed con­sid­er­a­tions without the tax.¹

⁴The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines what sup­plies made by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies qual­i­fy as busi­ness activ­ity and are there­fore tax­able.

¹Leg­al en­tit­ies with their re­gistered of­fice or a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment in Switzer­land which are closely as­so­ci­ated with one an­oth­er un­der the com­mon man­age­ment of a single leg­al en­tity may on ap­plic­a­tion com­bine as a single tax­able per­son (a VAT group). The group may also in­clude leg­al en­tit­ies which do not carry on a busi­ness, and in­di­vidu­als.

²The de­cision to com­bine as a VAT group may be made for the be­gin­ning of any tax peri­od. Ter­min­a­tion of a VAT group is pos­sible at the end of any tax peri­od.

¹Tax li­ab­il­ity com­mences:

a.

for busi­nesses with re­gistered of­fice, dom­i­cile or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment on Swiss ter­rit­ory: with the com­mence­ment of the busi­ness activ­ity;

b.

for all oth­er busi­nesses: on mak­ing a sup­ply for the first time on Swiss ter­rit­ory.¹

²Tax li­ab­il­ity ends:

a.

for busi­nesses with re­gistered of­fice, dom­i­cile or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment on Swiss ter­rit­ory:

1.

on ces­sa­tion of the busi­ness activ­ity,

2.

on li­quid­a­tion of as­sets: with the con­clu­sion of the li­quid­a­tion pro­ced­ure;

b.

for all oth­er busi­nesses: at the end of the cal­en­dar year in which a sup­ply was made on Swiss ter­rit­ory for the last time.²

³Ex­emp­tion from tax li­ab­il­ity ends as soon as the total of the turnovers gen­er­ated in the last fin­an­cial year reaches the threshold in Art­icle 10 para­graph 2 let­ters a or c or 12 para­graph 3, or it is fore­see­able that the threshold will be ex­ceeded with­in 12 months of com­men­cing or ex­tend­ing the busi­ness activ­ity.

⁴Waiver of the ex­emp­tion from tax li­ab­il­ity may be de­clared at the earli­est for the be­gin­ning of the cur­rent tax peri­od.

⁵If the qual­i­fy­ing turnover of the tax­able per­son does not reach the turnover threshold un­der Art­icle 10 para­graph 2 let­ters a or c or 12 para­graph 3 and it is ex­pec­ted that the qual­i­fy­ing turnover will also not be reached in the fol­low­ing tax peri­od, the tax­able per­son must de-re­gister. De-re­gis­tra­tion is not pos­sible be­fore the end of the tax peri­od in which the qual­i­fy­ing turnover is not reached. Fail­ure to de-re­gister is deemed to be waiver of the ex­emp­tion from tax li­ab­il­ity un­der Art­icle 11. The waiver ap­plies from the be­gin­ning of the fol­low­ing tax peri­od.

¹Jointly and sev­er­ally li­able with the tax­able per­son are:

a.

part­ners in a simple part­ner­ship, a gen­er­al or lim­ited part­ner­ship with­in the scope of their civil law li­ab­il­ity;

b.

per­sons who vol­un­tar­ily con­duct or ar­range an auc­tion;

c.¹

any per­son or un­in­cor­por­ated en­tity, with the ex­cep­tion of pen­sion schemes, that is a mem­ber of a VAT group (Art. 13) for all taxes pay­able by the group; if a per­son or un­in­cor­por­ated en­tity with­draws from the group, they are li­able only for the tax claims that have aris­en from their own busi­ness activ­ity;

d.

on trans­fer of a busi­ness: the pre­vi­ous tax debt­or for three years after the an­nounce­ment or re­port­ing of the trans­fer for tax claims that arose be­fore the trans­fer;

e.

on ter­min­a­tion of the tax li­ab­il­ity of a wound up leg­al en­tity, trad­ing com­pany or part­ner­ship without leg­al per­son­al­ity: the per­sons en­trus­ted with the li­quid­a­tion up to the amount of the li­quid­a­tion sur­plus;

f.

for the tax of a leg­al per­son that re­lo­cates its dom­i­cile abroad: the man­aging bod­ies up to the amount of the net as­sets of the leg­al en­tity.

²The per­sons des­ig­nated in para­graph 1 let­ters e and f are li­able only for the tax, in­terest and cost claims which arise or fall due un­der their man­age­ment; their li­ab­il­ity lapses if they can prove that they have done everything that could reas­on­ably be ex­pec­ted of them to as­cer­tain and sat­is­fy the tax claim.

³Li­ab­il­ity un­der Art­icle 12 para­graph 3 of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1974² on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law (ACLA) is re­served.

⁴If a tax­able per­son as­signs claims from his busi­ness to third parties, the lat­ter are li­able on a sub­si­di­ary basis for the VAT in­cluded in the as­sign­ment if at the date of the as­sign­ment, the tax debt due to the FTA has not yet aris­en and a cer­ti­fic­ate of short­fall is avail­able.³

⁵The per­son jointly and sev­er­ally li­able has in pro­ceed­ings the same rights and ob­lig­a­tions as the tax­able per­son.

¹If a tax­able in­di­vidu­al dies, his rights and ob­lig­a­tions pass to his heirs. They are jointly and sev­er­ally li­able for the taxes owed by the de­ceased up to the amount of their share of the es­tate, in­clud­ing amounts re­ceived in ad­vance.

²A per­son who takes over a busi­ness ac­quires the tax rights and ob­lig­a­tions of his leg­al pre­de­cessor.

Sat­is­fac­tion of the tax li­ab­il­ity of for­eign trad­ing com­pan­ies and for­eign part­ner­ships without leg­al per­son­al­ity is also the re­spons­ib­il­ity of their part­ners.

¹Do­mest­ic tax shall be levied on sup­plies made by tax­able per­sons on Swiss ter­rit­ory for con­sid­er­a­tion; they are tax­able un­less this Act provides oth­er­wise.

²Due to the ab­sence of any sup­ply, the fol­low­ing flows of funds in par­tic­u­lar do not qual­i­fy as a con­sid­er­a­tion:

a.

sub­sidies and oth­er pub­lic law con­tri­bu­tions, even if they are paid on the basis of a pub­lic ser­vice agree­ment or a pro­gramme agree­ment pur­su­ant to Art­icle 46 para­graph 2 of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion;

b.

funds that tour­ist of­fices re­ceive ex­clus­ively from pub­lic law tour­ist charges and which they em­ploy on be­half of pub­lic au­thor­it­ies for the pub­lic good;

c.

con­tri­bu­tions from can­ton­al wa­ter, sewage or waste funds to waste dis­pos­al in­sti­tu­tions or wa­ter­works;

d.

dona­tions;

e.

con­tri­bu­tions to busi­nesses, in par­tic­u­lar in­terest free loans, re­cap­it­al­isa­tion pay­ments and writ­ten-off debts;

f.

di­vidends and oth­er profit shares;

g.

con­trac­tu­ally or leg­ally reg­u­lated cost shar­ing pay­ments that are paid by an or­gan­isa­tion­al unit, in par­tic­u­lar by a fund, to par­ti­cipants in a branch of the in­dustry;

h.

de­pos­its in par­tic­u­lar on pack­aging and con­tain­ers;

i.

pay­ments of dam­ages, sat­is­fac­tion and the like;

j.

re­mu­ner­a­tion for em­ploy­ment, such as board mem­bers' and trust­ees’ fees, re­mu­ner­a­tion of au­thor­it­ies or pay;

k.

re­im­burse­ments, con­tri­bu­tions to and al­low­ances for sup­plies of goods de­livered abroad that are ex­empt from the tax un­der Art­icle 23 para­graph 2 num­ber 1;

l.

charges, con­tri­bu­tions or oth­er pay­ments re­ceived for sov­er­eign activ­it­ies.

¹Mu­tu­ally in­de­pend­ent sup­plies are treated sep­ar­ately.

²Two or more mu­tu­ally in­de­pend­ent sup­plies that are ag­greg­ated in­to one unit or are offered as a com­bin­a­tion of sup­plies may be treated as a unit ac­cord­ing to the pre­dom­in­ant sup­ply if they are made against an ag­greg­ate con­sid­er­a­tion and the pre­dom­in­ant sup­ply rep­res­ents by value at least 70 per cent of the ag­greg­ate con­sid­er­a­tion (com­bin­a­tion).

³Sup­plies that are eco­nom­ic­ally closely re­lated and in­ter­act with one an­oth­er in such a way that they must be re­garded as an in­di­vis­ible whole qual­i­fy as a unit­ary eco­nom­ic trans­ac­tion and must be treated ac­cord­ing to the char­ac­ter of the ag­greg­ate sup­ply.

⁴An­cil­lary sup­plies, in par­tic­u­lar pack­aging, are treated for tax pur­poses in the same way as the main sup­ply.

¹A sup­ply is deemed to be made by the per­son who ap­pears to the out­side world to be the sup­pli­er.

²If a per­son acts in the name of and for ac­count of an­oth­er per­son, the sup­ply is deemed to be made by the per­son rep­res­en­ted if the rep­res­ent­at­ive:

a.

can prove that he is act­ing as an agent and can clearly identi­fy the per­son rep­res­en­ted; and

b.

the ex­ist­ence of an agency re­la­tion­ship is ex­pressly no­ti­fied to the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply or is ob­vi­ous in the cir­cum­stances.

³If para­graph 1 ap­plies in a tri­an­gu­lar re­la­tion­ship, the sup­ply re­la­tion­ship between the per­son ap­pear­ing to the out­side world and the per­son ac­tu­ally mak­ing the sup­ply is qual­i­fied in the same way as the sup­ply re­la­tion­ship between the per­son act­ing in re­la­tion to the out­side world and the per­son re­ceiv­ing the sup­ply.

¹A sup­ply that is ex­empt from the tax without cred­it and for which tax­a­tion un­der Art­icle 22 is not op­ted for is not tax­able.

²Ex­empt from the tax without cred­it are:

1.

the trans­port of goods that is in­cluded in the re­served ser­vices un­der Art­icle 3 of the Postal Ser­vices Act of 30 April 1997¹;

2.

hos­pit­al treat­ment and med­ic­al treat­ment in hu­man medi­cine hos­pit­als, in­clud­ing closely re­lated sup­plies made by hos­pit­als and med­ic­al treat­ment and dia­gnost­ic centres. The dis­pens­ing of self-man­u­fac­tured or bought-in ar­ti­fi­cial limbs and or­tho­paed­ic equip­ment is deemed to be a tax­able sup­ply of goods;

3.

hu­man med­ic­al treat­ment provided by doc­tors, dent­ists, psy­cho­ther­ap­ists, chiro­pract­ors, physio­ther­ap­ists, na­tur­o­paths, mid­wives, nurs­ing pro­fes­sion­als or mem­bers of sim­il­ar med­ic­al and nurs­ing pro­fes­sions, provided the sup­pli­ers pos­sess a li­cence to prac­tise their pro­fes­sion: the Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the de­tails. The dis­pens­ing of self-man­u­fac­tured or bought-in ar­ti­fi­cial limbs and or­tho­paed­ic equip­ment is deemed to be a tax­able sup­ply of goods;

4.

the nurs­ing care ser­vices sup­plied by nurs­ing staff, nurs­ing or­gan­isa­tions and home aid (Spi­tex) or in homes, provided they are pre­scribed by a doc­tor;

5.

the sup­ply of hu­man or­gans by re­cog­nised med­ic­al in­sti­tu­tions and hos­pit­als and of hu­man whole blood by per­sons pos­sess­ing the ne­ces­sary li­cence;

6.

the ser­vices of com­munit­ies whose mem­bers are mem­bers of the pro­fes­sions lis­ted in num­ber 3, provided the ser­vices are sup­plied pro­por­tion­ately at cost price to the mem­bers for dir­ect per­form­ance of their activ­it­ies;

7.

the trans­port of sick or in­jured per­sons or per­sons with dis­ab­il­it­ies in vehicles spe­cially ad­ap­ted for the pur­pose;

8.²

sup­plies provided by so­cial as­sist­ance and so­cial se­cur­ity in­sti­tu­tions, sup­plies by char­it­able nurs­ing and home aid (Spi­tex) or­gan­isa­tions and by re­tire­ment, res­id­en­tial and nurs­ing homes;

9.

sup­plies re­lated to child and youth care provided by in­sti­tu­tions spe­cially fit­ted for the pur­pose;

10.

sup­plies closely re­lated to cul­tur­al and edu­ca­tion­al de­vel­op­ment of young people provided by char­it­able youth ex­change or­gan­isa­tions; young people with­in the mean­ing of this pro­vi­sion are per­sons up to the age of 25;

11.

the fol­low­ing sup­plies in the field of edu­ca­tion and train­ing:³

a.

sup­plies in the field of the edu­ca­tion of chil­dren and young people, of in­struc­tion, of train­ing, of fur­ther edu­ca­tion and of pro­fes­sion­al re-train­ing, in­clud­ing in­struc­tion giv­en by private teach­ers or at private schools,

b.

courses, lec­tures, and oth­er events of a sci­entif­ic or edu­ca­tion­al nature; lec­tur­ing activ­ity is ex­empt from the tax without cred­it, ir­re­spect­ive of wheth­er the fee is paid to the in­struct­ing per­son or his em­ploy­er,

c.

ex­am­in­a­tions car­ried out in the area of edu­ca­tion,

d.

or­gan­isa­tion­al ser­vices (in­clud­ing re­lated an­cil­lary ser­vices) provided by mem­bers of an in­sti­tu­tion that makes sup­plies ex­empt from the tax without cred­it un­der let­ters a–c, for this in­sti­tu­tion,

e.

or­gan­isa­tion­al ser­vices (in­clud­ing re­lated an­cil­lary ser­vices) for agen­cies of the Con­fed­er­a­tion, can­tons and com­munes that make sup­plies ex­empt from the tax without cred­it un­der let­ters a–c with or without con­sid­er­a­tion;

12.

the pro­vi­sion of staff by re­li­gious or philo­soph­ic­al non-profit in­sti­tu­tions for pur­poses of treat­ing the sick, of so­cial as­sist­ance and of so­cial se­cur­ity, of child and youth care, of edu­ca­tion and train­ing and for re­li­gious and char­it­able pur­poses and for the com­mon good;

13.

sup­plies that non-profit in­sti­tu­tions with polit­ic­al, trade uni­on, eco­nom­ic, re­li­gious, pat­ri­ot­ic, philo­soph­ic­al, phil­an­throp­ic, eco­lo­gic­al, sport­ing, cul­tur­al or civic ob­jects provide to their mem­bers against a con­tri­bu­tion laid down in stat­utes or reg­u­la­tions;

14.

cul­tur­al ser­vices of the types lis­ted be­low sup­plied dir­ectly to, or, if not sup­plied dir­ectly, im­me­di­ately per­ceiv­able by the pub­lic:⁴

a.

the­at­ric­al, mu­sic­al and cho­reo­graph­ic per­form­ances and film shows,

b.⁵

per­form­ances by act­ors, mu­si­cians, dan­cers and oth­er per­form­ing artists, sup­plies from per­sons that make an artist­ic con­tri­bu­tion to such per­form­ances, and sup­plies by fair­ground op­er­at­ors, in­clud­ing games of skill offered by the lat­ter,

c.

vis­its to mu­seums, gal­ler­ies, monu­ments, his­tor­ic­al sites and botan­ic­al and zo­olo­gic­al gar­dens,

d.

ser­vices of lib­rar­ies, archives and places for stor­ing doc­u­ments, in par­tic­u­lar the per­mit­ting of in­spec­tion of text, sound and im­age car­ri­ers on their premises; however, the sup­ply of goods (in­clud­ing lend­ing for use) by such in­sti­tu­tions is tax­able;

15.

con­sid­er­a­tions de­man­ded for sport­ing events, in­clud­ing con­sid­er­a­tions for par­ti­cip­a­tion in such events (e.g. start­ing money), to­geth­er with the an­cil­lary ser­vices in­cluded;

16.⁶

cul­tur­al ser­vices and the sup­ply of cul­tur­al works by their cre­at­ors, such as au­thors, com­posers, film makers, paint­ers, sculptors, and ser­vices sup­plied by pub­lish­ers and col­lect­ing so­ci­et­ies in or­der to cir­cu­late these works; the fore­go­ing also ap­plies to de­riv­at­ive works un­der Art­icle 3 of the Copy­right Act of 9 Oc­to­ber 1992⁷ that are of a cul­tur­al nature;

17.⁸

sup­plies made at events such as bazaars, flea mar­kets and raffles held by or­gan­isa­tions that per­form activ­it­ies that are ex­empt from the tax without cred­it in the field of non-profit-mak­ing sports and cul­tur­al cre­ativ­ity, in the field of health care, so­cial as­sist­ance and so­cial se­cur­ity, and child and youth care, and by char­it­able nurs­ing and home care (Spi­tex) or­gan­isa­tions and by re­tire­ment, res­id­en­tial and nurs­ing homes, provided the events serve the pur­pose of sup­port­ing these or­gan­isa­tions fin­an­cially and are held ex­clus­ively for their be­ne­fit; sup­plies provided by so­cial as­sist­ance and so­cial se­cur­ity or­gan­isa­tions through second hand shops when the turnover thus gen­er­ated is used ex­clus­ively for their be­ne­fit;

18.⁹

in the in­sur­ance in­dustry

a.

in­sur­ance and re­in­sur­ance sup­plies,

b.

so­cial in­sur­ance sup­plies,

c.

the fol­low­ing sup­plies in re­la­tion to so­cial in­sur­ance and pre­ven­tion cam­paigns:

–

sup­plies made by so­cial in­sur­ance schemes to each oth­er

–

sup­plies made by ex­ec­ut­ive bod­ies as part of their stat­utory duty to run pre­ven­tion cam­paigns

–

sup­plies re­lated to ba­sic and con­tinu­ing pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion and train­ing,

d.

sup­plies with­in the scope of the activ­ity as in­sur­ance agents or in­sur­ance brokers;

19.

the fol­low­ing turnovers in the field of money and cap­it­al trans­ac­tions:

a.

the grant­ing and broker­age of cred­its and the man­age­ment of cred­its by the lenders,

b.

the broker­age and as­sump­tion of li­ab­il­it­ies, sureties and oth­er se­cur­it­ies and guar­an­tees and the man­age­ment of col­lat­er­al by the lenders,

c.

turnovers, in­clud­ing those for broker­age, in de­pos­its and cur­rent ac­count trans­ac­tions, in pay­ment and trans­fer trans­ac­tions, in busi­ness with money claims, cheques and oth­er ne­go­ti­able pa­pers; however, the col­lec­tion of debts on be­half of the cred­it­or (debt col­lec­tion busi­ness) is tax­able,

d.

turnovers, in­clud­ing broker­age, re­lat­ing to leg­al tender (do­mest­ic and for­eign leg­al tender, such as cur­rency, bank notes, coins); tax­able, however, are col­lect­ors’ items (bank notes and coins) that are nor­mally not used as leg­al tender,

e.

turnovers (spot and for­ward trans­ac­tions), in­clud­ing broker­age, of se­cur­it­ies, rights and de­riv­at­ives and of in­terests in com­pan­ies and oth­er forms of as­so­ci­ation; however, the safe-keep­ing and the man­age­ment of se­cur­it­ies, rights and de­riv­at­ives and of in­terests (es­pe­cially se­cur­ity de­pos­its) in­clud­ing fi­du­ciary in­vest­ments are tax­able,

f.¹⁰

the dis­tri­bu­tion of units in col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes un­der Art­icle 3 para­graph 1 of the Col­lect­ive In­vest­ment Schemes Act of 23 June 2006¹¹ (CISA), activ­it­ies in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3 para­graph 2 CISA, and the man­age­ment of col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes in ac­cord­ance with CISA by per­sons, who man­age or hold them in safe­keep­ing, fund man­age­ments, de­pos­it­ary banks and their agents; agents are all in­di­vidu­als or leg­al en­tit­ies, to whom the col­lect­ive in­vest­ments may del­eg­ate tasks un­der the CISA; the dis­tri­bu­tion of units in and the man­age­ment of in­vest­ment com­pan­ies with fixed cap­it­al un­der Art­icle 110 CISA are gov­erned by let­ter e;

20.

the trans­fer and the cre­ation of rights in rem in im­mov­able prop­erty and the sup­plies of com­munit­ies of con­domin­i­um own­ers to the con­domin­i­um own­ers, to the ex­tent the sup­plies con­sist of the pro­vi­sion of the com­mun­al prop­erty for use, its main­ten­ance, its re­pair and oth­er man­age­ment and the sup­ply of heat­ing and sim­il­ar goods;

21.

the pro­vi­sion of im­mov­able prop­erty and parts of im­mov­able prop­erty for use or ex­ploit­a­tion; tax­able, however, are:

a.

the rent­ing of res­id­en­tial and sleep­ing ac­com­mod­a­tion for guests and the rent­ing of halls and rooms in ho­tels and res­taur­ants,

b.

the rent­ing of camp­ing sites,

c.

the rent­ing or leas­ing of non-pub­lic places for park­ing mo­tor vehicles, un­less it is a non-in­de­pend­ent ser­vice an­cil­lary to an­oth­er prop­erty rent­al ex­empt from the tax without cred­it,

d.

the rent­ing and leas­ing of im­mov­able equip­ment and ma­chines be­long­ing to an op­er­at­ing fa­cil­ity, but not to a sports fa­cil­ity,

e.

the rent­ing of safe de­pos­it boxes,

f.

the rent­ing of ex­hib­i­tion stands and in­di­vidu­al rooms in ex­hib­i­tion and con­gress build­ings;

22.

the sup­ply of postal stamps val­id on Swiss ter­rit­ory and oth­er of­fi­cial stamps up to their prin­ted value;

23.¹²

turnovers from gambling, to the ex­tent that the gross gam­ing in­come is sub­ject to the casino tax un­der Art­icle 119 of the Gambling Act of 29 Septem­ber 2017¹³ or the net profit achieved thereby is used in full for char­it­able pur­poses with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 125 of the said Act;

24.

the sup­ply of used mov­able goods, which were used ex­clus­ively for the pro­vi­sion of sup­plies ex­empt by this art­icle from the tax without cred­it;

25.¹⁴

26.

the sale of ag­ri­cul­tur­al, forestry and mar­ket garden products cul­tiv­ated in their own busi­ness by farm­ers, for­est­ers or garden­ers, the sale of cattle by cattle deal­ers, and the sale of milk by milk col­lec­tion points to milk pro­cessing plants;

27.

pub­li­city ser­vices, which char­it­able or­gan­isa­tions provide for the be­ne­fit of third parties or third parties for the be­ne­fit of char­it­able or­gan­isa­tions;

28.¹⁵

sup­plies:

a.

between or­gan­isa­tion­al units with­in the same pub­lic au­thor­ity,

b.

between private or pub­lic law com­pan­ies owned wholly by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies and the pub­lic au­thor­it­ies that own them or their or­gan­isa­tion­al units,

c.

between in­sti­tu­tions or found­a­tions that were foun­ded ex­clus­ively by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies and the pub­lic au­thor­it­ies that foun­ded them or their or­gan­isa­tion­al units;

28^bis.¹⁶the pro­vi­sion of staff by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies to oth­er pub­lic au­thor­it­ies;

29.

the ex­er­cise of ar­bit­ra­tion func­tions;

30.¹⁷

sup­plies between edu­ca­tion and re­search in­sti­tu­tions that are in­volved in edu­ca­tion and re­search co­oper­a­tion, provided those sup­plies are made as part of the co­oper­a­tion, ir­re­spect­ive of wheth­er the edu­ca­tion and re­search co­oper­a­tion is li­able to value ad­ded tax.

³Wheth­er a sup­ply men­tioned in para­graph 2 is ex­empt from the tax without cred­it is de­term­ined, sub­ject to para­graph 4, ex­clus­ively by its nature and re­gard­less of who makes or re­ceives the sup­ply.

⁴If a sup­ply in para­graph 2 is ex­empt from the tax without cred­it based on the at­trib­utes either of the sup­pli­er or of the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply, the ex­cep­tion ap­plies only for sup­plies that are provided or re­ceived by a per­son with these at­trib­utes.

⁵The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify in more de­tail the sup­plies ex­empt from the tax without cred­it; in do­ing so it shall ob­serve the prin­ciple of com­pet­it­ive neut­ral­ity.

⁶Or­gan­isa­tion­al units of a pub­lic au­thor­ity un­der para­graph 2 num­ber 28 are its agen­cies, its private and pub­lic com­pan­ies, provided no oth­er pub­lic au­thor­ity or oth­er third parties par­ti­cip­ate therein, and its in­sti­tu­tions and found­a­tions, provided the pub­lic au­thor­ity foun­ded them without the par­ti­cip­a­tion of oth­er pub­lic au­thor­it­ies or oth­er third parties.¹⁸

⁷The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine which in­sti­tu­tions are deemed to be edu­ca­tion and re­search in­sti­tu­tions un­der para­graph 2 num­ber 30.¹⁹

¹The tax­able per­son may, sub­ject to para­graph 2, tax any sup­ply ex­empt from the tax without cred­it (op­tion), provided the tax is clearly de­tailed or a de­clar­a­tion is made on the tax re­turn.¹

²The op­tion is ex­cluded for:

a.

sup­plies un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­bers 18, 19 and 23;

b.²

sup­plies un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­bers 20 and 21 if the good is used or is in­ten­ded to be used by the re­cip­i­ent ex­clus­ively for private res­id­en­tial pur­poses.

¹If a sup­ply is ex­empt from the tax un­der this art­icle, do­mest­ic tax is not pay­able on the sup­ply.

²Ex­empt from the tax are:

1.

the sup­ply of goods, un­less provided for use or ex­ploit­a­tion, that are trans­por­ted or dis­patched dir­ectly abroad;

2.¹

the pro­vi­sion for use or ex­ploit­a­tion, in par­tic­u­lar the leas­ing or char­ter­ing of goods, provided the goods are pre­dom­in­antly used abroad by the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply it­self;

3.²

the sup­ply of goods that were demon­strably sub­ject to cus­toms con­trol on Swiss ter­rit­ory in con­nec­tion with a trans­it pro­ced­ure (Art. 49 CustA³), a cus­toms ware­hous­ing pro­ced­ure (Art. 50–57 CustA), a tem­por­ary ad­mis­sion pro­ced­ure (Art. 58 CustA), or in­ward pro­cessing pro­ced­ure (Art. 59 CustA), provided the pro­ced­ure was con­cluded in the prop­er man­ner or with sub­sequent ap­prov­al from the Fed­er­al Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FCA);

3^bis.⁴

the sup­ply of goods which be­cause of stor­age in a bon­ded ware­house (Art. 62–66 CustA) were demon­strably sub­ject to cus­toms con­trol on Swiss ter­rit­ory and which have not ret­ro­spect­ively lost this cus­toms status;

4.

the move­ment or ar­ran­ging for the move­ment of goods abroad for reas­ons un­re­lated to a sup­ply of goods;

5.

the trans­port or dis­patch of goods in con­nec­tion with the im­port of goods and all re­lated sup­plies as far as the des­tin­a­tion to which the goods are to be trans­por­ted at the time the tax debt is in­curred un­der Art­icle 56; if no tax debt is in­curred, the de­cis­ive time is gov­erned by Art­icle 69 CustA by ana­logy;

6.

the trans­port or dis­patch of goods and all re­lated sup­plies in con­nec­tion with the ex­port of goods re­leased for free cir­cu­la­tion un­der cus­toms law;

7.⁵

trans­port ser­vices and an­cil­lary lo­gist­ic activ­it­ies, such as load­ing, un­load­ing, trans-ship­ment, clear­ing or tem­por­ary ware­hous­ing:

a.

in which the place of sup­ply of the ser­vice un­der Art­icle 8 para­graph 1 is on Swiss ter­rit­ory, al­though the ser­vice it­self is ex­clus­ively sup­plied abroad, or

b.

which are sup­plied in con­nec­tion with goods sub­ject to cus­toms con­trol;

8.

the sup­ply of air­craft to air­lines that carry on air trans­port and charter busi­ness com­mer­cially and whose turnovers from in­ter­na­tion­al flights ex­ceed those from do­mest­ic traffic; the re­fur­bish­ment, main­ten­ance and ser­vi­cing of air­craft which air­lines have ac­quired as part of a sup­ply of goods; the sup­ply, main­ten­ance and ser­vi­cing of goods built in­to these air­craft or of goods for their op­er­a­tion; the sup­ply of goods for the main­ten­ance of these air­craft and ser­vices that are destined for the im­me­di­ate needs of these air­craft and their loads;

9.

the ser­vices of in­ter­me­di­ar­ies act­ing ex­pressly in the name of and for ac­count of oth­ers, provided the brokered sup­ply is either ex­empt from the tax un­der this art­icle or is ef­fected ex­clus­ively abroad; if the brokered sup­ply is ef­fected both on Swiss ter­rit­ory and abroad, that part of the broker­age that relates to sup­plies abroad or sup­plies that are ex­empt from the tax un­der this art­icle is ex­empt from the tax;

10.

the sup­ply of ser­vices in their own name by travel agents and or­gan­isers of events, to the ex­tent they make use of sup­plies of goods and ser­vices by third parties that are provided abroad; if these sup­plies by third parties are provided both on Swiss ter­rit­ory and abroad, only that part of the ser­vice of the travel agent or of the or­gan­iser that relates to sup­plies abroad is ex­empt from the tax;

11.⁶

the sup­ply of goods un­der Art­icle 17 para­graph 1^bis CustA to per­sons de­part­ing abroad or ar­riv­ing from abroad by air.

³A dir­ect ex­port un­der para­graph 2 num­ber 1 is con­sti­tuted if the good sup­plied is ex­por­ted abroad or to an open cus­toms ware­house or bon­ded ware­house without be­ing used on Swiss ter­rit­ory. In seri­al trans­ac­tions, the dir­ect ex­port ex­tends to all sup­pli­ers in­volved. The good sup­plied may, pri­or to ex­port, be pro­cessed or fin­ished by agents of the non-tax­able cus­tom­er.

⁴The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may, in or­der to safe­guard com­pet­it­ive neut­ral­ity, ex­empt trans­port in cross-bor­der air, rail or bus traffic from the tax.

⁵The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Fin­ance (FDF) shall reg­u­late the con­di­tions by which do­mest­ic sup­plies of goods are ex­empt from the tax if be­ing ex­por­ted in tour­ist traffic and shall spe­cify the evid­ence re­quired.

¹The tax is cal­cu­lated on the con­sid­er­a­tion ac­tu­ally re­ceived. The con­sid­er­a­tion in­cludes in par­tic­u­lar the re­im­burse­ment of all costs, even if they are in­voiced sep­ar­ately, and the pub­lic law charges pay­able by the tax­able per­son. Para­graphs 2 and 6 re­main re­served.

²For sup­plies to closely re­lated per­sons (Art. 3 let. h), the con­sid­er­a­tion is deemed to be the amount that would be agreed between in­de­pend­ent third parties.

³For barter trans­ac­tions, the mar­ket value of each sup­ply is deemed to be the con­sid­er­a­tion for the oth­er sup­ply.

⁴For ex­change re­pairs, the con­sid­er­a­tion cov­ers only the wage for the work car­ried out.

⁵For sup­plies made in lieu of pay­ment, the con­sid­er­a­tion is deemed to be the amount which is thereby sat­is­fied.

⁶Not in­cluded in the as­sess­ment basis are:

a.

tick­et taxes, im­mov­able prop­erty trans­fer taxes and the VAT it­self pay­able on the sup­ply;

b.

amounts that the tax­able per­son re­ceives from the per­son re­ceiv­ing the sup­ply as re­im­burse­ment of out­lays made in his name and for his ac­count, provided they are de­tailed sep­ar­ately (trans­it­ory items);

c.

the por­tion of the con­sid­er­a­tion that, on sale of an im­mov­able good, relates to the value of the land;

d.

the can­ton­al con­tri­bu­tions to wa­ter, sewage or waste funds in­cluded in the price of dis­pos­al and sup­ply ser­vices, to the ex­tent that these con­tri­bu­tions are used by these funds to pay con­tri­bu­tions to dis­pos­al or­gan­isa­tions or wa­ter­works.

¹If the per­son li­able to tax has ac­quired col­lect­ors’ items such as works of art, an­tiques and such­like, in or­der to cal­cu­late the tax he may de­duct the pur­chase price from selling price provided he has not de­duc­ted in­put tax from the pur­chase price (mar­gin tax­a­tion). If the pur­chase price is high­er than the selling price, the loss may be set off, in that the dif­fer­ence is de­duc­ted from tax­able turnover.

²If such col­lect­ors’ items are im­por­ted by the re­seller, the im­port tax paid may be ad­ded to the pur­chase price.

³A per­son is deemed to be a re­seller if he acts for his own ac­count or for the ac­count of an­oth­er on the basis of a pur­chase or sales com­mis­sion agree­ment.

⁴The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine what is deemed to be a col­lect­ors’ item.

⁵If two or more col­lect­ors’ items are pur­chased for an over­all price, the tax may be cal­cu­lated on the basis of the total dif­fer­ence between the over­all selling price and the over­all pur­chase price. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the re­quire­ments.

¹The tax rate is 7.7 per cent (stand­ard rate),¹ sub­ject to para­graphs 2 and 3.

²The re­duced tax rate of 2.5 per cent ap­plies to:²

a.

the sup­ply of the fol­low­ing goods:

1.

tap wa­ter,

2.³

food­stuffs un­der the Food­stuffs Act of 20 June 2014⁴, with the ex­cep­tion of al­co­hol­ic bever­ages,

3.

cattle, poultry, fish,

4.

grains,

5.

seeds, plant­ing roots and bulbs, liv­ing plants, cut­tings, scions and cut flowers and branches, in­clud­ing those used in ar­range­ments bou­quets, wreaths, etc.; if in­voiced sep­ar­ately, the sup­ply of these goods is also sub­ject to the re­duced tax rate, even if it is made in com­bin­a­tion with a sup­ply tax­able at the stand­ard rate,

6.

an­im­al feed, sil­age acids, scat­ter­ings for an­im­als,

7.

fer­til­isers, pesti­cides, mulch and oth­er ve­get­a­tion used as cov­er­ing ma­ter­i­al,

8.

med­ic­a­tion,

9.

news­pa­pers, magazines, books and oth­er prin­ted mat­ter without ad­vert­ising char­ac­ter of the kinds to be stip­u­lated by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil;

a^bis.⁵

elec­tron­ic news­pa­pers, magazines and books without ad­vert­ising char­ac­ter as defined by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil;

b.

the sup­ply of ser­vices of ra­dio and tele­vi­sion com­pan­ies, with the ex­cep­tion of ser­vices of a com­mer­cial nature;

c.

the sup­plies un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­bers 14–16;

d.

ag­ri­cul­tur­al sup­plies that con­sist of land cul­tiv­a­tion dir­ectly re­lated to ini­tial pro­duc­tion or cul­tiv­a­tion of ini­tial pro­duc­tion products con­nec­ted with the land.

³For food­stuffs that form part of res­taur­ant sup­plies, the stand­ard rate ap­plies. A res­taur­ant sup­ply is the serving of food­stuffs provided the tax­able per­son pre­pares or serves the food­stuffs on the cus­tom­er’s premises or the tax­able per­son main­tains spe­cial in­stall­a­tions for their con­sump­tion on the spot. If food­stuffs, with the ex­cep­tion of al­co­hol­ic bever­ages, are destined to be taken away or for de­liv­ery, the re­duced tax rate ap­plies provided suit­able or­gan­isa­tion­al meas­ures are taken to dif­fer­en­ti­ate these sup­plies from res­taur­ant sup­plies; if this is not the case, the stand­ard rate ap­plies. Where food­stuffs, with the ex­cep­tion of al­co­hol­ic bever­ages, are offered in vend­ing ma­chines, the re­duced tax rate ap­plies.⁶

⁴The tax on ac­com­mod­a­tion ser­vices is 3.7 per cent (spe­cial rate). The spe­cial rate ap­plies un­til 31 Decem­ber 2020 or, in the event that the time lim­it in Art­icle 196 num­ber 14 para­graph 1 of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion is ex­ten­ded, un­til 31 Decem­ber 2027 at the latest. An ac­com­mod­a­tion ser­vice is the pro­vi­sion of ac­com­mod­a­tion, in­clud­ing the serving of break­fast, even if it is in­voiced sep­ar­ately.⁷

⁵The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall spe­cify in great­er de­tail the goods and ser­vices des­ig­nated in para­graph 2; in do­ing so it shall ob­serve the prin­ciple of com­pet­it­ive neut­ral­ity.

¹The sup­pli­er must on re­quest is­sue the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply with an in­voice that sat­is­fies the re­quire­ments of para­graphs 2 and 3.

²The in­voice must clearly identi­fy the sup­pli­er, the re­cip­i­ent and the nature of the sup­ply and as a rule con­tain the fol­low­ing ele­ments:

a.¹

the name and the loc­a­tion of the sup­pli­er in the form in which he presents him­self in busi­ness trans­ac­tions, a note that he is re­gistered as a tax­able per­son and the num­ber un­der which he is entered in the Re­gister of Tax­able Per­sons;

b.

the name and loc­a­tion of the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply in the form in which he presents him­self in busi­ness trans­ac­tions;

c.

the date or peri­od of the pro­vi­sion of the sup­ply, in the event that it dif­fers from the in­voice date;

d.

the nature, ob­ject and ex­tent of the sup­ply;

e.

the con­sid­er­a­tion for the sup­ply;

f.

the ap­plic­able tax rate and the tax amount pay­able on the con­sid­er­a­tion; if the con­sid­er­a­tion in­cludes the tax, de­tails of the ap­plic­able tax rate suf­fice.

³On in­voices is­sued by auto­mat­ic tills (re­ceipts), in­form­a­tion on the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply need not be in­cluded provided the con­sid­er­a­tion dis­closed on the re­ceipt does not ex­ceed an amount laid down by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil.

¹Any per­son not entered in the Re­gister of Tax­able Per­sons or who uses the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure ac­cord­ing to Art­icle 38 may not in­clude VAT de­tails on in­voices.

²Any per­son who in­cludes VAT de­tails on an in­voice when not en­titled to do so, or who de­tails too high a tax for a sup­ply, shall owe the tax de­tailed un­less:

a.

the in­voice is cor­rec­ted in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 4; or

b.¹

he shows prob­able cause that the Con­fed­er­a­tion has not suffered a loss of tax; tax is not lost if the re­cip­i­ent of the in­voice has not made an in­put tax de­duc­tion or if the in­put tax claimed has been re­paid to the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

³The leg­al con­sequences of para­graph 2 also ap­ply to cred­it notes, un­less the re­cip­i­ent of the cred­it note con­tests in writ­ing the tax de­tailed without au­thor­isa­tion or the ex­cess­ive tax amount.²

⁴An in­voice may be sub­sequently cor­rec­ted with­in the peri­od per­mit­ted by com­mer­cial law by a doc­u­ment re­quir­ing ac­know­ledge­ment of re­ceipt, which refers to and re­vokes the ori­gin­al in­voice.

¹The tax­able per­son may in the course of his busi­ness activ­ity, sub­ject to Art­icles 29 and 33, de­duct the fol­low­ing in­put taxes:

a.

the do­mest­ic tax in­voiced to him;

b.

the ac­quis­i­tion tax de­clared by him (Art. 45–49);

c.

the im­port tax paid or pay­able by him which has been as­sessed un­con­di­tion­ally or has been as­sessed con­di­tion­ally and fallen due as well as the tax de­clared by him for the im­port of goods (Art. 52 and 63).

²If the tax­able per­son has, in the course of a busi­ness activ­ity en­titling him to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion, pro­cured ag­ri­cul­tur­al, forestry or mar­ket garden products, cattle or milk from non-tax­able farm­ers, for­est­ers, garden­ers, cattle deal­ers or milk col­lect­ors, he may de­duct as in­put tax 2.5 per cent of the amount in­voiced.¹

³De­duc­tion of the in­put tax un­der para­graph 1 is per­miss­ible if the tax­able per­son proves that he has paid the in­put tax.²

¹The tax­able per­son may de­duct no­tion­al in­put tax if:

a.

he ac­quires an in­di­vidu­al­is­able move­able good in the course of a busi­ness activ­ity en­titling him to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion; and

b.

the VAT on ac­quis­i­tion of the good has not been openly passed on to him.

²The no­tion­al in­put tax is cal­cu­lated on the basis of the amount paid by the tax­able per­son. The amount paid is re­garded as in­clud­ing the tax at the tax rate ap­plic­able at the time of ac­quis­i­tion.

³No no­tion­al in­put tax may be de­duc­ted in re­spect of goods sub­ject to mar­gin tax­a­tion un­der Art­icle 24a.

¹There is no right to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion on sup­plies and the im­port of goods which are used to make sup­plies that are ex­empt without cred­it from the tax and where the op­tion for their tax­a­tion has not been ex­er­cised.

^1bisAn in­put tax de­duc­tion for sup­plies made abroad is pos­sible to the same ex­tent as if they had been made on Swiss ter­rit­ory and tax­a­tion had been op­ted for un­der Art­icle 22.¹

²Not­with­stand­ing para­graph 1, there is a right to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion in the course of a busi­ness activ­ity en­titling the tax­able per­son to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion for the pur­chase, hold­ing and sale of in­terests and for re­or­gan­isa­tions as defined by Art­icle 19 or 61 of the Fed­er­al Act of 14 Decem­ber 1990² on Dir­ect Fed­er­al Tax­a­tion (DFTA).

³In­terests are par­ti­cip­a­tions in the cap­it­al of oth­er busi­nesses that are held with the in­tent of long-term in­vest­ment and con­fer sig­ni­fic­ant in­flu­ence. Par­ti­cip­a­tions of at least 10 per cent in the cap­it­al are deemed to be an in­terest.

⁴In or­der to as­cer­tain the de­duct­ible in­put tax, hold­ing com­pan­ies may base their cal­cu­la­tion on the busi­ness activ­ity of the busi­nesses held by them that gives rise to the right to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion.³

¹If the tax­able per­son also uses goods, parts there­of or ser­vices out­side his busi­ness activ­ity, or uses the same with­in his busi­ness activ­ity both for sup­plies en­titling the tax­able per­son to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion and for sup­plies that are ex­cluded from in­put tax de­duc­tion, he must cor­rect the in­put tax de­duc­tion in pro­por­tion to their use.

²If such a pre-sup­ply is pre­dom­in­antly used in the course of the busi­ness activ­ity in­volving sup­plies en­titling the tax­able per­son to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion, the in­put tax may be de­duc­ted in full and cor­rec­ted at the end of the tax peri­od (Art. 31).

¹If the con­di­tions for in­put tax de­duc­tion are sub­sequently not ful­filled (own use), the in­put tax de­duc­tion must be cor­rec­ted at the point in time at which the con­di­tions are no longer ful­filled. The in­put tax pre­vi­ously de­duc­ted, in­clud­ing the parts cor­rec­ted as a sub­sequent in­put tax de­duc­tion, must be re­paid.

²Own use oc­curs in par­tic­u­lar where the tax­able per­son with­draws goods or ser­vices per­man­ently or tem­por­ar­ily from his busi­ness, provided on pro­cure­ment or con­tri­bu­tion of the whole or of its com­pon­ents he has made an in­put tax de­duc­tion or he has pro­cured the goods or ser­vices un­der the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure ac­cord­ing to Art­icle 38 which:

a.

he uses out­side his busi­ness activ­ity, in par­tic­u­lar for private pur­poses;

b.

he uses for a busi­ness activ­ity which does not en­title him to make the in­put tax de­duc­tion un­der Art­icle 29 para­graph 1;

c.

he hands over without con­sid­er­a­tion, without there be­ing a busi­ness reas­on; in the case of gifts of up to 500 francs per per­son and year and of ad­vert­ising gifts and samples with the aim of real­ising turnovers tax­able or ex­empt from the tax, a busi­ness reas­on will be pre­sumed auto­mat­ic­ally;

d.

on the ces­sa­tion of tax li­ab­il­ity are still sub­ject to his right of dis­pos­al.

³If in the peri­od between the re­ceipt of the sup­ply and the non-ful­fil­ment of the con­di­tions for the in­put tax de­duc­tion, the good or ser­vice was put to use, the in­put tax de­duc­tion must be cor­rec­ted in the amount of the fair value of the good or the ser­vice. To de­term­ine the fair value, the in­put tax amount is re­duced on a straight line basis for every year that has ex­pired by a fifth for mov­able goods and for ser­vices, and by a twen­ti­eth for im­mov­able goods. The ac­count­ing treat­ment is of no sig­ni­fic­ance. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may, in jus­ti­fied cases, stip­u­late de­par­tures from the de­pre­ci­ation rules.

⁴If a good is used only tem­por­ar­ily out­side the busi­ness activ­ity or for a busi­ness activ­ity not en­titling the tax­able per­son to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion, the in­put tax de­duc­tion must be cor­rec­ted based on the amount of the tax that would be due on the rent that an in­de­pend­ent third per­son would charge there­for.

¹If the con­di­tions for the in­put tax de­duc­tion arise later (sub­sequent in­put tax de­duc­tion), the in­put tax de­duc­tion may be made in the re­port­ing peri­od in which the con­di­tions arose. The in­put tax not de­duc­ted earli­er, in­clud­ing the por­tion cor­rec­ted for own use, may be de­duc­ted.

²If the good or the ser­vice was put in­to use in the time between re­ceipt or im­port of the sup­ply and the oc­cur­rence of the con­di­tions for the in­put tax de­duc­tion, the de­duct­ible in­put tax is lim­ited to the fair value of the good or the ser­vice. To de­term­ine the fair value, the in­put tax amount is re­duced on a straight line basis for every year that has ex­pired by a fifth for mov­able goods and for ser­vices, and by a twen­ti­eth for im­mov­able goods. The ac­count­ing treat­ment is of no sig­ni­fic­ance. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may, in jus­ti­fied cases, stip­u­late de­par­tures from the de­pre­ci­ation rules.

³ If a good is used only tem­por­ar­ily out­side the busi­ness activ­ity or for a busi­ness activ­ity not en­titling the in­put tax de­duc­tion, the in­put tax de­duc­tion must be cor­rec­ted based on the amount of the tax that would be due on the rent that an in­de­pend­ent third per­son would charge there­for.

¹Flows of funds that are not deemed to be con­sid­er­a­tion (Art. 18 para. 2), do not res­ult in a re­duc­tion of the in­put tax de­duc­tion, sub­ject to para­graph 2.

²The tax­able per­son must re­duce his in­put tax de­duc­tion pro­por­tion­ately if he re­ceives money un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let­ters a–c.

¹The tax is levied by tax peri­od.

²The tax peri­od is the cal­en­dar year.

³The FTA shall per­mit the tax­able per­son on re­quest to use the busi­ness year as the tax peri­od.¹

¹With­in the tax peri­od, the tax is re­por­ted:

a.

as a rule quarterly;

b.

for re­port­ing us­ing net tax rates (Art. 37 paras. 1 and 2): every six months;

c.

if there are reg­u­lar in­put tax sur­pluses: at the re­quest of the tax­able per­son, monthly.

²On ap­plic­a­tion, the FTA shall per­mit, in jus­ti­fi­able cases, oth­er re­port­ing peri­ods and shall stip­u­late the con­di­tions there­for.

¹In prin­ciple, the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od must be used.

²When ap­ply­ing the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od, the tax claim is cal­cu­lated as the dif­fer­ence between the do­mest­ic tax pay­able, the ac­quis­i­tion tax (Art. 45) and im­port tax de­clared in the trans­fer pro­ced­ure (Art. 63) and the in­put tax cred­it for the cor­res­pond­ing re­port­ing peri­od.

¹If a tax­able per­son does not gen­er­ate more than 5,005,000 francs turnover from tax­able sup­plies an­nu­ally and in the same peri­od does not have to pay more than 103,000 francs in tax, cal­cu­lated at the net tax rate that ap­plies to him, he may re­port un­der the net tax rate meth­od.¹

²When us­ing the net tax rate meth­od, the tax claim is de­term­ined by mul­tiply­ing the sum of the tax­able con­sid­er­a­tions, in­clud­ing tax, gen­er­ated in the re­port­ing peri­od by the net tax rate ap­proved by the FTA.

³The net tax rates take in­to ac­count the in­put tax amounts usu­al in the rel­ev­ant branch of the in­dustry. They are fixed by the FTA after con­sulta­tion with the in­dustry as­so­ci­ation con­cerned.²

⁴Au­thor­isa­tion to re­port un­der the net tax rate meth­od must be re­ques­ted from the FTA and the meth­od must be used for at least one tax peri­od. If the tax­able per­son elects for the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od, he may not change to the net tax rate meth­od for at least three years. Changes are pos­sible for the be­gin­ning of a tax peri­od.

⁵Pub­lic au­thor­it­ies and re­lated in­sti­tu­tions, in par­tic­u­lar private hos­pit­als and schools or li­censed trans­port un­der­tak­ings and as­so­ci­ations and found­a­tions may re­port us­ing the flat tax rate meth­od. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall reg­u­late the de­tails.

¹If the tax cal­cu­lated at the stat­utory rate on the sales price ex­ceeds 10,000 francs or if the sale is made to a closely re­lated per­son, the tax­able per­son must ful­fil his re­port­ing and tax pay­ment ob­lig­a­tion by no­ti­fic­a­tion in the fol­low­ing cases:

a.¹

re­or­gan­isa­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 19 or 61 DFTA²;

b.³

oth­er trans­fers of all or part of as­sets to an­oth­er tax­able per­son in the con­text of an in­cor­por­a­tion, li­quid­a­tion, re­or­gan­isa­tion, sale of busi­ness or a leg­al trans­ac­tion reg­u­lated in the Mer­gers Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 2003⁴.

²The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may de­term­ine oth­er cases in which the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure must be, or may be, used.

³The no­ti­fic­a­tions must be made in the course of or­din­ary re­port­ing.

⁴By us­ing the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure, the ac­quirer ac­cepts the seller’s as­sess­ment basis and the level of use en­titling to an in­put tax de­duc­tion in re­spect of the as­sets trans­ferred.

⁵If in the cases men­tioned in para­graph 1 the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure was not ap­plied but se­cur­ity is provided for the tax claim, the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure may no longer be ordered.

¹The tax shall be re­por­ted based on the agreed con­sid­er­a­tion.

²The FTA shall al­low the tax­able per­son on ap­plic­a­tion to re­port on the basis of the con­sid­er­a­tion col­lec­ted.

³The form of re­port­ing chosen must be re­tained for at least one tax peri­od.

⁴The FTA may re­quire the tax­able per­son to re­port on the basis of the con­sid­er­a­tion col­lec­ted if:

a.

he re­ceives to a sig­ni­fic­ant ex­tent con­sid­er­a­tions be­fore he per­forms the sup­ply or is­sues an in­voice; or

b.

there is reas­on­able sus­pi­cion that the tax­able per­son is ab­us­ing the pro­ced­ure of re­port­ing based on agreed con­sid­er­a­tions to ob­tain an un­law­ful be­ne­fit for him­self or a third party.

¹If re­port­ing is on the basis of agreed con­sid­er­a­tions, the right to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion is con­sti­tuted at the time of re­ceipt of the in­voice. The turnover tax debt is in­curred:

a.

on in­voicing;

b.

with the is­sue of a par­tial in­voice or with the col­lec­tion of the par­tial pay­ment, if the sup­plies give rise to a series of par­tial in­voices or par­tial pay­ments;

c.

with the col­lec­tion of the con­sid­er­a­tion on ad­vance pay­ments for sup­plies not ex­empt from the tax and for sup­plies without in­voice.

²If re­port­ing is based on col­lec­ted con­sid­er­a­tions, the right to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion is con­sti­tuted at the time of pay­ment. The turnover tax li­ab­il­ity is in­curred on col­lec­tion of the con­sid­er­a­tion.

³The right to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion based on the ac­quis­i­tion tax is con­sti­tuted at the time of re­port­ing the ac­quis­i­tion tax (Art. 47).

⁴The right to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion based on the im­port tax is con­sti­tuted at the end of the re­port­ing peri­od in which the tax was es­tab­lished.

¹If the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply cor­rects paid or agreed con­sid­er­a­tions, the turnover tax li­ab­il­ity must be ad­jus­ted at the time when the cor­rec­tion is booked or the cor­rec­ted con­sid­er­a­tion is col­lec­ted.

²If the con­sid­er­a­tion ex­pen­ded by the tax­able per­son is cor­rec­ted, the turnover tax li­ab­il­ity must be ad­jus­ted at the time when the cor­rec­tion is booked or the cor­rec­ted con­sid­er­a­tion is paid.

¹The right to es­tab­lish a tax claim pre­scribes five years from the end of the tax peri­od in which the tax claim was es­tab­lished.

²This pre­script­ive peri­od is in­ter­rup­ted by a writ­ten de­clar­a­tion re­quir­ing con­firm­a­tion of re­ceipt that is aimed at es­tab­lish­ing or cor­rect­ing the tax claim, a rul­ing, a de­cision on an ob­jec­tion, or a judg­ment. A cor­res­pond­ing in­ter­rup­tion of the pre­script­ive peri­od may also be achieved by the an­nounce­ment of an audit un­der Art­icle 78 para­graph 3 or the com­mence­ment of an un­an­nounced audit.

³If the pre­script­ive peri­od is in­ter­rup­ted by the FTA or an ap­peal body, the pre­script­ive peri­od be­gins to run again. It then runs for two years.

⁴The pre­script­ive peri­od shall be sus­pen­ded for as long as pro­ceed­ings un­der this Act re­lat­ing to tax of­fences are be­ing con­duc­ted in re­spect of the rel­ev­ant tax peri­od and the per­son li­able for pay­ment has been no­ti­fied (Art. 104 para. 4).

⁵In­ter­rup­tion and sus­pen­sion are ef­fect­ive to­wards all per­sons li­able for pay­ment.

⁶The right to es­tab­lish the tax claim in any case pre­scribes 10 years from the end of the tax peri­od in which the tax claim arose.

¹The tax claim is made leg­ally bind­ing by:

a.

a rul­ing that has be­come leg­ally bind­ing, a de­cision on an ob­jec­tion that has be­come leg­ally bind­ing or a judg­ment that has be­come leg­ally bind­ing;

b.

the writ­ten re­cog­ni­tion or pay­ment without re­ser­va­tion of an as­sess­ment no­tice by the tax­able per­son;

c.

the pre­scrip­tion of the right to es­tab­lish the tax.

²Un­til they are leg­ally bind­ing, the re­turns sub­mit­ted and paid may be cor­rec­ted.

¹The tax­able per­son may as­sign and pledge his tax claim in ac­cord­ance with the pro­vi­sions of private law.

²The rights of the FTA, namely to ob­ject and to take meas­ures to se­cure the tax, are not af­fected by the as­sign­ment or pledge.¹

¹The fol­low­ing are sub­ject to the ac­quis­i­tion tax:

a.¹

sup­plies of ser­vices by busi­nesses based abroad that are not entered in the Re­gister of Tax­able Per­sons where the place of sup­ply un­der Art­icle 8 para­graph 1 is situ­ated on Swiss ter­rit­ory, with the ex­cep­tion of tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion or elec­tron­ic ser­vices sup­plied to non-tax­able re­cip­i­ents;

b.

the im­port of data stor­age me­dia without mar­ket value with the ser­vices and rights in­cluded therein (Art. 52 para. 2);

c.²

sup­plies of im­mov­able goods on Swiss ter­rit­ory that are not sub­ject to im­port tax and which are made by busi­nesses based abroad and which are not entered in the Re­gister of Tax­able Per­sons, with the ex­cep­tion of mak­ing such goods avail­able for use or ex­ploit­a­tion;

d.³

the sup­ply of elec­tri­city in cables, gas via the nat­ur­al gas dis­tri­bu­tion net­work and dis­trict heat­ing by busi­nesses based abroad to per­sons li­able to tax on Swiss ter­rit­ory.

²The re­cip­i­ent of sup­plies un­der para­graph 1 is li­able to the tax, provided he:⁴

a.

is li­able to the tax un­der Art­icle 10; or

b.⁵

pro­cures such sup­plies for more than 10,000 francs in the cal­en­dar year.

Sup­plies that are ex­empt from do­mest­ic tax without cred­it un­der Art­icle 21 or ex­empt from the do­mest­ic tax un­der Art­icle 23 are not sub­ject to the ac­quis­i­tion tax.

The pro­vi­sions of Art­icles 24 and 25 ap­ply to tax as­sess­ment and the tax rates.

¹For tax­able per­sons un­der Art­icle 45 para­graph 2 let­ter a, the same tax and re­port­ing peri­ods ap­ply as for the do­mest­ic tax (Art. 34 and 35).

²The tax and re­port­ing peri­od for tax­able per­sons un­der Art­icle 45 para­graph 2 let­ter b is the cal­en­dar year.

¹The ac­quis­i­tion tax debt is in­curred:

a.

with the pay­ment of the con­sid­er­a­tion for the sup­ply;

b.

in the case of tax­able per­sons un­der Art­icle 45 para­graph 2 let­ter a who re­port on the basis of agreed con­sid­er­a­tions (Art. 40 para. 1) at the time of re­ceipt of the in­voice, and for sup­plies without in­voicing on pay­ment of the con­sid­er­a­tion.

²Pre­scrip­tion of the right to es­tab­lish the tax and leg­ally bind­ing ef­fect are gov­erned by Art­icles 42 and 43.

For joint and sev­er­al li­ab­il­ity, tax suc­ces­sion and sub­sti­tu­tion, the pro­vi­sions of Art­icles 15–17 ap­ply.

For the tax on the im­port of goods, the cus­toms le­gis­la­tion ap­plies, un­less the fol­low­ing pro­vi­sions provide oth­er­wise.

¹Any per­son who is a cus­toms debt­or un­der Art­icle 70 para­graphs 2 and 3 CustA¹ is li­able to the tax.

²Joint and sev­er­al li­ab­il­ity un­der Art­icle 70 para­graph 3 CustA does not ap­ply to per­sons who file cus­toms de­clar­a­tions com­mer­cially (Art. 109 CustA) if the im­port­er:

a.

is en­titled to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion (Art. 28);

b.²

has the im­port tax debt charged via the FCA’s cent­ral­ised set­tle­ment pro­ced­ure (CSP) ac­count; and

c.

has com­mis­sioned the per­son who files cus­toms de­clar­a­tions com­mer­cially to act as his dir­ect agent.

³The FCA may re­quire the per­son who is­sues cus­toms de­clar­a­tions com­mer­cially to provide evid­ence of his au­thor­ity as an agent.³

¹The tax­able ob­ject is:

a.

the im­port of goods, in­clud­ing the ser­vices and rights con­tained therein;

b.

the re­lease of goods un­der Art­icle 17 para­graph 1^bis CustA¹ for free cir­cu­la­tion by per­sons ar­riv­ing by air from abroad.²

²If, on the im­port of data stor­age me­dia, no mar­ket value can be es­tab­lished and if the im­port is not ex­empt from tax un­der Art­icle 53, no im­port tax is due there­on and the pro­vi­sions con­cern­ing the ac­quis­i­tion tax (Art. 45–49) ap­ply.³

³The pro­vi­sions of Art­icle 19 ap­ply to a plur­al­ity of sup­plies.

¹Ex­empt from the tax is the im­port of:

a.

goods in small quant­it­ies, of in­sig­ni­fic­ant value or with an in­sig­ni­fic­ant tax amount; the FDF shall is­sue more de­tailed pro­vi­sions;

b.

hu­man or­gans by re­cog­nised med­ic­al in­sti­tu­tions and hos­pit­als and of hu­man whole blood by per­sons pos­sess­ing the ne­ces­sary li­cence;

c.

works of art that were per­son­ally cre­ated by paint­ers or sculptors and are brought onto Swiss ter­rit­ory by them or on their be­half, sub­ject to Art­icle 54 para­graph 1 let­ter c;

d.

goods that are ex­empt from cus­toms du­ties un­der Art­icle 8 para­graph 2 let­ters b–d, g and i–l CustA¹;

e.

goods un­der Art­icle 23 para­graph 2 num­ber 8 that are im­por­ted as part of a sup­ply of goods by air­lines un­der Art­icle 23 para­graph 2 num­ber 8 or are brought onto Swiss ter­rit­ory by such air­lines, provided they have pro­cured the goods pri­or to im­port as part of a sup­ply of goods and after the im­port use them for their own busi­ness activ­it­ies en­titling the tax­able per­son to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion (Art. 28);

f.

goods that have been as­sessed un­der the ex­port pro­ced­ure (Art. 61 CustA) and are re­turned un­altered to the con­signor on Swiss ter­rit­ory, provided they have not been ex­empt from the tax be­cause of ex­port; if the amount of tax is sub­stan­tial, the tax ex­emp­tion with cred­it is gran­ted by re­im­burse­ment; the pro­vi­sions of Art­icle 59 ap­ply by ana­logy;

g.²

elec­tri­city in cables, gas via the nat­ur­al gas dis­tri­bu­tion net­work and dis­trict heat­ing;

h.

goods that are de­clared tax free in treat­ies gov­erned by in­ter­na­tion­al law;

i.

goods that are im­por­ted onto Swiss ter­rit­ory for tem­por­ary ad­mis­sion un­der Art­icles 9 and 58 CustA or for in­ward pro­cessing un­der Art­icles 12 and 59 CustA un­der the pro­ced­ure with en­ti­tle­ment to re­im­burse­ment, sub­ject to Art­icle 54 para­graph 1 let­ter d;

j.

goods that are tem­por­ar­ily im­por­ted onto Swiss ter­rit­ory by a per­son re­gistered on Swiss ter­rit­ory as a tax­able per­son for job pro­cessing un­der a work and la­bour con­tract and which are as­sessed un­der the pro­ced­ure for in­ward pro­cessing as be­ing con­di­tion­ally due for pay­ment (sus­pens­ive pro­ced­ure) (Art. 12 and 59 CustA);

k.

goods that were ex­por­ted from Swiss ter­rit­ory un­der Art­icle 9 and 58 CustA for tem­por­ary ad­mis­sion or un­der Art­icles 13 and 60 CustA for out­ward job pro­cessing un­der a work and la­bour con­tract and are re­turned to the con­signor on Swiss ter­rit­ory, sub­ject to Art­icle 54 para­graph 1 let­ter e;

l.

goods that have been taken abroad for job pro­cessing un­der a work and la­bour con­tract un­der the ex­port pro­ced­ure (Art. 61 CustA) and are re­turned to the con­signor on Swiss ter­rit­ory, sub­ject to Art­icle 54 para­graph 1 let­ter f.

²The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ex­empt from the im­port tax goods that it de­clares ex­empt from cus­toms du­ties un­der Art­icle 8 para­graph 2 let­ter a CustA.

¹The tax is cal­cu­lated:

a.

on the con­sid­er­a­tion, if the goods are im­por­ted in ful­fil­ment of a sales or com­mis­sion trans­ac­tion;

b.

on the con­sid­er­a­tion for sup­plies of goods un­der work and la­bour con­tracts or for work with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 3 let­ter d num­ber 2 us­ing goods re­leased for free cir­cu­la­tion (Art. 48 CustA²) and car­ried out by a per­son not re­gistered on Swiss ter­rit­ory as a tax­able per­son;

c.

on the con­sid­er­a­tion for work car­ried out abroad on be­half of artists and sculptors on their own works of art (Art. 3 let. d no. 2), provided the works of art were brought onto Swiss ter­rit­ory by them or on their be­half;

d.

on the con­sid­er­a­tion for the use of goods that were im­por­ted for tem­por­ary ad­mis­sion un­der Art­icles 9 and 58 CustA, provided the amount of tax due on this con­sid­er­a­tion is sub­stan­tial; if no or a re­duced con­sid­er­a­tion is de­man­ded for the tem­por­ary use, the con­sid­er­a­tion that would be charged by an in­de­pend­ent third party ap­plies;

e.

on the con­sid­er­a­tion for the work car­ried out abroad on goods (Art. 3 let. d no. 2) that were ex­por­ted un­der Art­icles 9 and 58 CustA for tem­por­ary ad­mis­sion or un­der Art­icles 13 and 60 CustA for out­ward job pro­cessing un­der a work and la­bour con­tract and are re­turned to the con­signor on Swiss ter­rit­ory;

f.

on the con­sid­er­a­tion for the work car­ried out abroad on goods (Art. 3 let. d no. 2), provided they have been taken abroad for job pro­cessing un­der a work and la­bour con­tract un­der the ex­port pro­ced­ure (Art. 61 CustA) and are re­turned to the con­signor on Swiss ter­rit­ory;

g.³

on the mar­ket value in the re­main­ing cases; the mar­ket value is what the im­port­er, at the level at which the im­port is ef­fected, would have to pay to ob­tain the same goods from an in­de­pend­ent sup­pli­er in the source land of the goods at the time that the im­port tax debt is in­curred un­der Art­icle 56 un­der the con­di­tions of free com­pet­i­tion.

²If the tax cal­cu­la­tion is based on the con­sid­er­a­tion, the con­sid­er­a­tion paid or pay­able by the im­port­er or by a third party in his stead un­der Art­icle 24 ap­plies, sub­ject to Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let­ter h. If the con­sid­er­a­tion is altered sub­sequently, Art­icle 41 ap­plies by ana­logy.

³The as­sess­ment basis must in­clude, if not already in­cluded:

a.

the taxes, cus­toms du­ties and oth­er charges in­curred out­side Swiss ter­rit­ory and as a res­ult of the im­port, with the ex­cep­tion of the Value Ad­ded Tax be­ing levied;

b. ⁴

the costs of the trans­port or dis­patch and all re­lated sup­plies as far as the des­tin­a­tion on Swiss ter­rit­ory to which the goods are to be trans­por­ted at the time im­port tax debt un­der Art­icle 56 is in­curred; if this loc­a­tion is un­known, the des­tin­a­tion is the place where the trans-ship­ment takes place on Swiss ter­rit­ory after im­port tax debt is in­curred.

⁴If doubt ex­ists as to the cor­rect­ness of the cus­toms de­clar­a­tion or val­ues are lack­ing, the FCA may es­tim­ate the tax as­sess­ment basis at its fair dis­cre­tion.

⁵Price or value in­form­a­tion ex­pressed in for­eign cur­rency ad­duced in de­term­in­ing the as­sess­ment basis must be con­ver­ted in­to Swiss francs at the ex­change rate (of­fer) pre­vail­ing on the stock ex­change day im­me­di­ately pri­or to the in­cur­rence of the im­port tax debt un­der Art­icle 56.

¹The tax on the im­port of goods is 7.7 per cent, sub­ject to para­graph 2.

²The tax is 2.5 per cent on the im­port of goods un­der Art­icle 25 para­graph 2 let­ter a and a^bis.

¹The im­port tax debt is in­curred at the same time as the cus­toms debt (Art. 69 CustA¹).

²Tax­able per­sons un­der Art­icle 51 who settle the im­port tax debt via the CSP are al­lowed a peri­od of 60 days after is­sue of the in­voice to make pay­ment; ex­cep­tions are im­ports made by tour­ists, which must be re­por­ted or­ally for cus­toms as­sess­ment.

³In re­la­tion to se­cur­ity, fa­cil­it­ies may be gran­ted if col­lec­tion of the tax is not en­dangered as a res­ult.

⁴The im­port tax debt pre­scribes at the same time as the cus­toms debt (Art. 75 CustA). The pre­script­ive peri­od is sus­pen­ded for as long as crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings in re­spect of tax of­fences un­der this Act are in pro­cess and the per­son li­able for pay­ment has been in­formed (Art. 104 para. 4).

⁵If the im­port tax debt changes as a res­ult of sub­sequent ad­just­ment of the con­sid­er­a­tion, in par­tic­u­lar as a res­ult of re­vi­sion of the con­tract or be­cause of price ad­just­ments between re­lated busi­nesses based on re­cog­nised guidelines, the tax that has been as­sessed too low must be no­ti­fied to the FCA with­in 30 days of the ad­just­ment. The no­ti­fic­a­tion and the ad­just­ment of the tax as­sess­ment may be dis­pensed with if the ad­di­tion­al tax pay­able could be de­duc­ted as in­put tax un­der Art­icle 28.

¹If the im­port tax debt is not paid on time, in­terest on the late pay­ment is due.

²The li­ab­il­ity for in­terest on late pay­ment be­gins:

a.

where pay­ment is made via the CSP: on ex­piry of the pay­ment terms gran­ted;

b.

where the tax is levied on the con­sid­er­a­tion un­der Art­icle 54 para­graph 1 let­ter d: on ex­piry of the pay­ment terms gran­ted;

c.

where an im­prop­er re­im­burse­ment of taxes is re­claimed: on the date of re­im­burse­ment;

d.

in all oth­er cases: on the in­cur­rence of the im­port tax debt un­der Art­icle 56.

³The li­ab­il­ity for in­terest on late pay­ment also con­tin­ues dur­ing ap­peal pro­ceed­ings and in­stal­ment pay­ments.

In­terest on late pay­ment is not im­posed if:

a.

the im­port tax debt has been se­cured by a cash de­pos­it;

b.

goods re­leased for free cir­cu­la­tion (Art. 48 CustA¹) are first pro­vi­sion­ally as­sessed (Art. 39 CustA) and at the time of ac­cept­ance of the cus­toms de­clar­a­tion, the im­port­er was re­gistered on Swiss ter­rit­ory as a tax­able per­son;

c.²

goods con­di­tion­ally as­sessed (Art. 49, 51 para. 2 let­ter b, 58 and 59 CustA) on con­clu­sion of the cus­toms pro­ced­ure

1.

are re-ex­por­ted, or

2.

are placed un­der an­oth­er cus­toms pro­ced­ure (Art. 47 CustA);

c^bis.³

in the case of goods con­di­tion­ally as­sessed, the im­port­er was re­gistered on Swiss ter­rit­ory as a tax­able per­son at the time of ac­cept­ance of the cus­toms de­clar­a­tion;

d. ⁴

e.

the goods must be de­clared peri­od­ic­ally for the cus­toms as­sess­ment pro­ced­ure (Art. 42 para. 1 let­ter c CustA) or are sub­sequently as­sessed un­der a sim­pli­fied cus­toms as­sess­ment pro­ced­ure (Art. 42 para. 2 CustA) and the im­port­er was re­gistered on Swiss ter­rit­ory as a tax­able per­son at the time of the im­port.

¹Where ex­cess taxes have been im­posed or taxes are not due, there is a right to a re­fund.

²Not re­fun­ded are ex­cess taxes im­posed, taxes not due and taxes no longer due as a res­ult of a sub­sequent as­sess­ment of the goods un­der Art­icles 34 and 51 para­graph 3 CustA¹ or be­cause of their re-ex­port un­der Art­icles 49 para­graph 4, 51 para­graph 3, 58 para­graph 3 and 59 para­graph 4 CustA if the im­port­er is re­gistered on Swiss ter­rit­ory as a tax­able per­son and may de­duct the tax pay­able or paid to the FCA as in­put tax un­der Art­icle 28.

³The right pre­scribes five years from the end of the cal­en­dar year in which it was con­sti­tuted.

⁴The pre­script­ive peri­od is in­ter­rup­ted if the right is en­forced against the FCA.

⁵It is sus­pen­ded for as long as ap­peal pro­ceed­ings in re­spect of the en­force­ment of the right are pending.

⁶The right to a re­fund of ex­cess taxes im­posed or taxes not due in any event pre­scribes 15 years from the end of the cal­en­dar year in which it was con­sti­tuted.

¹The tax im­posed on im­port shall be re­fun­ded on ap­plic­a­tion if the con­di­tions for an in­put tax de­duc­tion un­der Art­icle 28 are not met and:

a.

the goods are re-ex­por­ted un­altered without pri­or han­dover to a third party as part of a sup­ply of goods on Swiss ter­rit­ory and without hav­ing been used earli­er; or

b.

the goods were used on Swiss ter­rit­ory, but are re-ex­por­ted as a res­ult of can­cel­la­tion of the sup­ply of goods; in this case the re­fund is re­duced by the amount that rep­res­ents the tax on the con­sid­er­a­tion for use of the goods or on the loss of value caused by use of the goods and on the non-re­fun­ded im­port cus­toms du­ties and du­ties based on non-cus­toms-based fed­er­al laws.

²The tax is re­fun­ded only if:

a.

the re-ex­port takes place with­in five years of the end of the cal­en­dar year in which the tax was im­posed; and

b.

the goods ex­por­ted are proven to be identic­al to those im­por­ted earli­er.

³The re­fund may in a spe­cif­ic case be made de­pend­ent on prop­er de­clar­a­tion in the im­port state.

⁴Ap­plic­a­tions for a re­fund must be sub­mit­ted on de­clar­a­tion for the ex­port pro­ced­ure. Sub­sequent re­fund ap­plic­a­tions may be con­sidered if they are sub­mit­ted in writ­ing to the FCA with­in 60 days of is­sue of the ex­port doc­u­ment with which the goods were as­sessed un­der the ex­port pro­ced­ure (Art. 61 CustA¹).

¹Re­fund in­terest shall be paid in re­spect of the peri­od that elapses be­fore the re­fund is paid:

a.

in the case of re­funds of ex­cess tax or tax not due un­der Art­icle 59: from the 61^st day after re­ceipt of the writ­ten claim by the FCA;

b.

in re­spect of re­funds of the tax as a res­ult of re-ex­port un­der Art­icle 60: from the 61^st day after re­ceipt of the ap­plic­a­tion by the FCA;

c.

in re­spect of pro­ced­ures with con­di­tion­al pay­ment li­ab­il­ity (Art. 49, 51, 58 and 59 CustA¹): from the 61^st day after due con­clu­sion of the pro­ced­ure.

²The in­terest-free peri­od of 60 days does not be­gin to run un­til:

a.

all doc­u­ments ne­ces­sary to es­tab­lish the facts and eval­u­ate the re­quest have been re­ceived by the FCA;

b.

the ob­jec­tion to the as­sess­ment de­cision sat­is­fies the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 52 of the Fed­er­al Act of 20 Decem­ber 1968² on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure (APA);

c.

the bases for cal­cu­lat­ing the tax on the con­sid­er­a­tion un­der Art­icle 54 para­graph 1 let­ter d are known to the FCA.

³Re­fund in­terest is not paid on a tax re­mis­sion un­der Art­icle 64.

¹The im­port tax is levied by the FCA. It is­sues the ne­ces­sary or­ders and rul­ings.

²The ex­ec­ut­ive bod­ies of the FCA are au­thor­ised to un­der­take all the in­vest­ig­a­tions that are ne­ces­sary to ex­am­ine the facts sig­ni­fic­ant to the as­sess­ment of the tax. Art­icles 68–70, 73–75 and 79 ap­ply by ana­logy. The FCA may, by agree­ment with the FTA, trans­fer in­vest­ig­a­tions re­lat­ing to per­sons re­gistered on Swiss ter­rit­ory as tax­able per­sons to the FTA.

¹Tax­able im­port­ers re­gistered with the FTA as tax­able per­sons that re­port us­ing the ef­fect­ive meth­od may, in­stead of pay­ing the tax pay­able on the im­port of goods to the FCA, de­clare it in their peri­od­ic tax re­turn to the FTA (trans­fer pro­ced­ure), provided they reg­u­larly im­port and ex­port goods and sig­ni­fic­ant in­put tax sur­pluses res­ult.

²If the goods im­por­ted un­der the trans­fer pro­ced­ure are fur­ther pro­cessed or fin­ished on Swiss ter­rit­ory after the im­port, the FTA may au­thor­ise tax­able per­sons to sup­ply the pro­cessed or fin­ished goods to oth­er tax­able per­sons without cal­cu­lat­ing the tax.

³The Fed­er­al Coun­cil stip­u­lates the de­tails of the trans­fer pro­ced­ure.

¹A re­mis­sion may be gran­ted for all or part of the im­port tax, if:

a.

goods held in the cus­tody of the FCA or made sub­ject to a trans­it pro­ced­ure (Art. 49 CustA¹), a cus­toms ware­hous­ing pro­ced­ure (Art. 50–57 CustA), a tem­por­ary ad­mis­sion pro­ced­ure (Art. 58 CustA) or a pro­ced­ure of in­ward pro­cessing (Art. 59 CustA) are des­troyed in whole or in part by chance, act of God or with of­fi­cial ap­prov­al;

b.

goods re­leased for free cir­cu­la­tion by of­fi­cial de­cree are des­troyed in whole or in part or are again ex­por­ted from Swiss ter­rit­ory;

c.

a sub­sequent claim in terms of Art­icle 85 CustA would, in view of spe­cial cir­cum­stances, con­sti­tute an un­reas­on­able bur­den on the tax­able per­son un­der Art­icle 51;

d.

the per­son re­spons­ible for the cus­toms de­clar­a­tion (e.g. the for­ward­ing agent) can­not re­cov­er the tax from the im­port­er be­cause of the lat­ter's in­solv­ency, and the im­port­er was at the time of the ac­cept­ance of the cus­toms de­clar­a­tion re­gistered as a tax­able per­son on Swiss ter­rit­ory; in­solv­ency of the im­port­er must be as­sumed if re­pay­ment of the debt due to the per­son re­spons­ible for the cus­toms de­clar­a­tion ap­pears to be ser­i­ously at risk.

²The Dir­ect­or­ate Gen­er­al of Cus­toms de­cides on the tax re­mis­sion on writ­ten ap­plic­a­tion sup­por­ted by the ne­ces­sary evid­ence.

³The peri­od for sub­mis­sion of an ap­plic­a­tion is:

a.

on as­sess­ment with un­con­di­tion­al im­port tax debt: one year after the is­sue of the im­port doc­u­ment with which the im­port tax was as­sessed;

b.

on as­sess­ment with con­di­tion­al im­port tax debt: one year after con­clu­sion of the cus­toms pro­ced­ure chosen.

¹The FTA is re­spons­ible for the im­pos­i­tion and the col­lec­tion of the do­mest­ic and the ac­quis­i­tion tax.

²In or­der to en­sure that the tax is im­posed and col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with the law, the FTA shall is­sue all the ne­ces­sary in­struc­tions, un­less the is­sue of such is ex­pressly re­served to an­oth­er au­thor­ity.

³It pub­lishes without delay all good prac­tice reg­u­la­tions that are not ex­clus­ively of an in­tern­al ad­min­is­trat­ive nature.

⁴All ad­min­is­trat­ive acts must be car­ried out ex­ped­i­tiously.

⁵The tax­able per­son may be burdened by the tax im­pos­i­tion only to the ex­tent this is ab­so­lutely ne­ces­sary for en­force­ment of this Act.

¹Per­sons who are tax­able un­der Art­icle 10 must re­gister with the FTA of their own ac­cord in writ­ing with­in 30 days of the com­mence­ment of their tax li­ab­il­ity. The Ad­min­is­tra­tion shall is­sue them with a non-trans­fer­able num­ber in ac­cord­ance with the re­quire­ments of the Fed­er­al Act of 18 June 2010¹ on the Busi­ness Iden­ti­fic­a­tion Num­ber, which is re­gistered.²

²If tax li­ab­il­ity ends in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 14 para­graph 2, the tax­able per­son must de-re­gister with the FTA in writ­ing with­in 30 days of the end of the busi­ness activ­ity, and at the latest on con­clu­sion of the li­quid­a­tion pro­ceed­ings.

³Any per­son who be­comes tax­able solely be­cause of the ac­quis­i­tion tax (Art. 45 para. 2) must re­gister with the FTA in writ­ing with­in 60 days of the end of the cal­en­dar year in which he is li­able for tax and at the same time de­clare the sup­plies pro­cured.

¹Tax­able per­sons without a dom­i­cile, re­gistered of­fice or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment on Swiss ter­rit­ory must ap­point a rep­res­ent­at­ive to per­form their pro­ced­ur­al ob­lig­a­tions who has his dom­i­cile, re­gistered of­fice or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment on Swiss ter­rit­ory.

²In the case of group tax­a­tion (Art. 13), the VAT group must ap­point a rep­res­ent­at­ive to ful­fil their pro­ced­ur­al ob­lig­a­tions who has his dom­i­cile or place of busi­ness in Switzer­land.

³The ap­point­ment of a rep­res­ent­at­ive un­der para­graphs 1 and 2 does not con­sti­tute a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment in ac­cord­ance with the dir­ect tax pro­vi­sions.

¹The tax­able per­son must provide the FTA in good faith with in­form­a­tion on all mat­ters that to the best of his know­ledge and be­lief could be of sig­ni­fic­ance to tax li­ab­il­ity or for as­sess­ment of the tax, and must sub­mit the doc­u­ments re­quired.

²Pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity as pro­tec­ted by law is re­served. Per­sons sub­ject to pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity are ob­liged to open their books or re­cords, but may con­ceal the names and ad­dresses of their cli­ents or re­place them with codes, but not their dom­i­cile, re­gistered of­fice or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment. In cases of doubt, at the re­quest of the FTA or of the tax­able per­son, the pres­id­ent of the com­pet­ent cham­ber of the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court shall ap­point neut­ral ex­perts as con­trolling bod­ies.

In re­sponse to a writ­ten en­quiry made by the tax­able per­son about the VAT con­sequences of a spe­cif­ic set of cir­cum­stances, the FTA shall provide in­form­a­tion with­in a reas­on­able peri­od. The in­form­a­tion is leg­ally bind­ing on the en­quir­ing tax­able per­son and the FTA; it may not be used in re­la­tion to any oth­er set of cir­cum­stances.

¹The tax­able per­son must keep his books of ac­count and re­cords in ac­cord­ance with the prin­ciples of com­mer­cial law. The FTA may in ex­cep­tion­al cases im­pose more ex­tens­ive re­cord­ing ob­lig­a­tions if this is es­sen­tial for prop­er im­pos­i­tion of the VAT.

²The tax­able per­son must re­tain in a prop­er man­ner his books of ac­count, re­ceipts, busi­ness doc­u­ments and oth­er re­cords un­til the right to es­tab­lish the tax claim has pre­scribed (Art. 42 para. 6). Art­icles 958f of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹ ap­plies.²

³Busi­ness doc­u­ments that are re­quired in con­nec­tion with the cal­cu­la­tion of a sub­sequent in­put tax de­duc­tion and own use of im­mov­able goods must be re­tained for 20 years (Art. 31 para. 3 and 32 para. 2).

⁴The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall stip­u­late the con­di­tions un­der which re­ceipts that are ne­ces­sary un­der this Act for en­force­ment of the tax may be trans­mit­ted and re­tained in pa­per­less form.

¹The tax­able per­son must of his own ac­cord file a re­turn in re­spect of the tax claim in the pre­scribed form to the FTA with­in 60 days of the end of the re­port­ing peri­od.

²If the tax li­ab­il­ity ends, the peri­od runs from this date.

¹If the tax­able per­son dis­cov­ers er­rors in his tax re­turns in the course of draw­ing up his an­nu­al ac­counts, he must cor­rect them at the latest in the re­turn for the re­port­ing peri­od in which the 180th day after the end of the rel­ev­ant busi­ness year falls.

²The tax­able per­son is ob­liged to ret­ro­spect­ively cor­rect re­cog­nised er­rors in re­turns re­lat­ing to past tax peri­ods un­less the tax claims for these tax peri­ods have be­come leg­ally bind­ing or have pre­scribed.

³The ret­ro­spect­ive cor­rec­tions of the re­turns must be no­ti­fied in the form spe­cified by the FTA.

⁴In the case of sys­tem-based er­rors that are dif­fi­cult to as­cer­tain, the FTA may grant the tax­able per­son fa­cil­it­ies un­der Art­icle 80.

¹Third parties ob­liged to provide in­form­a­tion un­der para­graph 2 must at the re­quest of the FTA and free of charge:

a.

provide all in­form­a­tion that is ne­ces­sary to es­tab­lish tax li­ab­il­ity or to cal­cu­late the tax claim against a tax­able per­son;

b.

per­mit the in­spec­tion of books of ac­count, re­ceipts, busi­ness doc­u­ments and oth­er re­cords if the re­quired in­form­a­tion is not avail­able from the tax­able per­son.

²A third party ob­liged to provide in­form­a­tion is a per­son who:

a.

could be a tax­able per­son;

b.

is li­able for the tax in ad­di­tion to or in­stead of the tax­able per­son;

c.

has re­ceived or sup­plied goods or ser­vices;

d.

holds a qual­i­fy­ing in­terest in a com­pany sub­ject to group tax­a­tion.

³Pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity as pro­tec­ted by law is re­served.

¹Any per­son en­trus­ted with or con­sul­ted on the ex­e­cu­tion of this Act must main­tain con­fid­en­ti­al­ity about the in­form­a­tion of which he has be­come aware in the per­form­ance of his du­ties to­wards oth­er au­thor­it­ies and private per­sons and must not grant un­au­thor­ised per­sons ac­cess to of­fi­cial doc­u­ments.

²There is no duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity:

a.

when provid­ing ad­min­is­trat­ive as­sist­ance un­der Art­icle 75 and in ful­filling an ob­lig­a­tion to re­port crim­in­al acts;

b.

to­wards ex­ec­ut­ive bod­ies of the ju­di­ciary or ad­min­is­tra­tion if the au­thor­ity en­trus­ted with the im­ple­ment­a­tion of this Act has been au­thor­ised by the Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Fin­ance to provide in­form­a­tion;

c.

in a par­tic­u­lar case to­wards the debt en­force­ment and bank­ruptcy au­thor­it­ies or in the re­port­ing of debt en­force­ment or bank­ruptcy of­fences to the dis­ad­vant­age of the FTA;

d.¹

for the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion entered in the Re­gister of Tax­able Per­sons: the num­ber un­der which he is re­gistered, ad­dress and busi­ness activ­ity, and be­gin­ning and end of tax li­ab­il­ity.

¹The tax au­thor­it­ies of the Con­fed­er­a­tion, can­tons, dis­tricts, ad­min­is­trat­ive areas and com­munes shall sup­port each oth­er mu­tu­ally in ful­filling their tasks; they must pre­pare the ap­pro­pri­ate re­ports, provide the in­form­a­tion re­quired and per­mit the in­spec­tion of files free of charge.

²The ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies of the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the autonom­ous fed­er­al or­gan­isa­tions and es­tab­lish­ments and all oth­er au­thor­it­ies of the can­tons, dis­tricts, ad­min­is­trat­ive areas and com­munes not men­tioned in para­graph 1 are ob­liged to provide in­form­a­tion to the FTA if the in­form­a­tion re­ques­ted may be of sig­ni­fic­ance for the en­force­ment of this Act and for the col­lec­tion of the tax un­der this Act or for col­lect­ing the busi­ness fee un­der the Fed­er­al Act of 24 March 2006¹ on Ra­dio and Tele­vi­sion; the in­form­a­tion must be provided free of charge. On re­quest, doc­u­ments must be for­war­ded to the FTA free of charge.²

³In­form­a­tion may be re­fused only if its pro­vi­sion con­flicts with es­sen­tial pub­lic in­terests or the in­form­a­tion would sig­ni­fic­antly hinder the au­thor­ity con­tac­ted in the per­form­ance of its task. Postal and tele­com­mu­nic­a­tions con­fid­en­ti­al­ity must be ob­served.

⁴Dis­putes re­lat­ing to the ob­lig­a­tion of ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies of the Con­fed­er­a­tion to provide in­form­a­tion are de­cided by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil. Dis­putes re­lat­ing to the ob­lig­a­tion of au­thor­it­ies of the can­tons, dis­tricts, ad­min­is­trat­ive areas and com­munes to provide in­form­a­tion are de­cided by the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court (Art. 120 of the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court Act of 17 June 2005³) if the can­ton­al gov­ern­ment has re­fused the re­quest for in­form­a­tion.

⁵The or­gan­isa­tions en­trus­ted with pub­lic law tasks have, in the con­text of these tasks, the same ob­lig­a­tion to provide in­form­a­tion as the au­thor­it­ies; para­graph 4 ap­plies by ana­logy.

¹With­in the scope of its re­mit, the FTA may, on their re­quest, provide ad­min­is­trat­ive as­sist­ance to for­eign au­thor­it­ies in per­form­ing their tasks, spe­cific­ally in en­sur­ing cor­rect ap­plic­a­tion of VAT law and in pre­vent­ing, ex­pos­ing and pro­sec­ut­ing breaches of VAT law, in­so­far as this is provided for in an in­ter­na­tion­al agree­ment.

²It provides ad­min­is­trat­ive as­sist­ance by ana­log­ous ap­plic­a­tion of Art­icle 115a to 115i CustA².

¹In or­der to ful­fil its stat­utory du­ties, the FTA is per­mit­ted to pro­cess sens­it­ive per­son­al data and per­son­al­ity pro­files, in­clud­ing data on ad­min­is­trat­ive and crim­in­al pro­sec­u­tions and sanc­tions.

²It may sys­tem­at­ic­ally use the Old-Age and Sur­viv­ors' In­sur­ance num­ber as defined in Art­icle 50c of the Fed­er­al Act of 20 Decem­ber 1946² on Old-Age and Sur­viv­ors' In­sur­ance to es­tab­lish tax li­ab­il­ity.

¹The FTA shall op­er­ate an in­form­a­tion sys­tem for pro­cessing per­son­al data and sens­it­ive per­son­al data on ad­min­is­trat­ive and crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings and sanc­tions, and per­son­al­ity pro­files.

²The sys­tem serves the fol­low­ing pur­poses:

a.

es­tab­lish­ing the tax li­ab­il­ity of in­di­vidu­als, leg­al en­tit­ies and part­ner­ships;

b.

es­tab­lish­ing tax­able sup­plies as well as levy­ing and re­view­ing the tax due there­on and the de­duct­ible in­put tax;

c.

re­view­ing the sup­plies claimed as ex­empt from tax without cred­it and the re­lated in­put tax;

d.

re­view­ing the tax ex­emp­tion with cred­it of sup­plies that are by law sub­ject to the tax or which have been vol­un­tar­ily sub­mit­ted to the tax (op­tion for tax­a­tion);

e.

car­ry­ing out the checks on im­port and ex­port re­ceipts rel­ev­ant to the levy­ing of value ad­ded tax;

f.

en­sur­ing the col­lec­tion of the taxes due from tax­able per­sons and per­sons jointly li­able;

g.

im­pos­ing and en­for­cing ad­min­is­trat­ive or crim­in­al sanc­tions;

h.

pro­cessing re­quests for ad­min­is­trat­ive or mu­tu­al leg­al as­sist­ance;

i.

com­bat­ing tax crime;

j.

keep­ing the stat­ist­ics re­quired for the col­lec­tion of the tax;

k.

pro­du­cing ana­lyses and risk pro­files.

³The in­form­a­tion sys­tem may con­tain the fol­low­ing per­son­al data, in­clud­ing sens­it­ive per­son­al data:

a.

data on the iden­tity of per­sons;

b.

data on eco­nom­ic activ­it­ies;

c.

data on in­come and fin­an­cial cir­cum­stances;

d.

data on tax mat­ters;

e.

data on con­trac­tu­al ob­lig­a­tions and as­sign­ments of claims;

f.

data on debt en­force­ment, bank­ruptcy and at­tach­ment pro­ceed­ings;

g.

per­son­al­ity pro­files un­der Art­icle 3 let­ter d of the Fed­er­al Act of 19 June 1992² on Data Pro­tec­tion;

h.

data on the com­pli­ance with tax ob­lig­a­tions;

i.

data on sus­pi­cion of of­fences;

j.

data on of­fences, seized goods and evid­ence;

k.

data on ad­min­is­trat­ive and crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings and on ad­min­is­trat­ive and mu­tu­al leg­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings.

¹In or­der to ful­fil its stat­utory du­ties un­der Art­icle 10 of the Fed­er­al Audit Of­fice Act of 28 June 1967², the Swiss Fed­er­al Audit Of­fice shall have ac­cess to the FTA in­form­a­tion sys­tem.

²The FTA may dis­close data un­der Art­icle 76a para­graph 3 or make it ac­cess­ible on­line to the per­sons in the FCA en­trus­ted with the im­pos­i­tion and col­lec­tion of VAT or with the con­duct of crim­in­al and ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­ceed­ings, provided this is ne­ces­sary for them to ful­fil their du­ties.

¹Data and doc­u­ments that are used and pro­cessed in the ap­plic­a­tion of this Act must be care­fully and sys­tem­at­ic­ally held in safe­keep­ing and pro­tec­ted against any dam­age.

²The doc­u­ments stored on the basis of this pro­vi­sion are equi­val­ent to the ori­gin­als.

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall is­sue im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions on:

a.

the in­form­a­tion sys­tem;

b.

the cat­egor­ies of per­son­al data pro­cessed;

c.

the cata­logue of sens­it­ive per­son­al data on ad­min­is­trat­ive and crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings and sanc­tions;

d.

rights to ac­cess and pro­cess data;

e.

the re­ten­tion peri­od for the data; and

f.

the archiv­ing and de­struc­tion of the data.

The FTA shall re­view the ful­fil­ment of the ob­lig­a­tion to re­gister as a tax­able per­son and the tax re­turns and pay­ments.

¹The FTA may per­form audits of tax­able per­sons to the ex­tent this is ne­ces­sary to cla­ri­fy the cir­cum­stances. For this pur­pose, these per­sons must grant the FTA ac­cess to their ac­counts and re­lated re­ceipts. The same ap­plies to third parties ob­liged to provide in­form­a­tion un­der Art­icle 73 para­graph 2.

²The de­mand for and re­view of com­pre­hens­ive doc­u­ment­a­tion by the FTA is also re­garded as an audit.

³Writ­ten no­tice must be giv­en of an audit. In jus­ti­fi­able and ex­cep­tion­al cases, no­ti­fic­a­tion of an audit may be waived.

⁴The tax­able per­son may make a jus­ti­fied re­quest for an audit to be car­ried out. The audit must be per­formed with­in two years.

⁵The audit must be con­cluded with­in 360 days of no­ti­fic­a­tion with an as­sess­ment no­tice; it states the amount of the tax claim in the peri­od audited.

⁶The find­ings re­lat­ing to third parties made dur­ing an audit un­der para­graphs 1 to 4 of a bank or sav­ings in­sti­tu­tion as defined in the Bank­ing Act of 8 Novem­ber 1934¹, of the Swiss Na­tion­al Bank, of a mort­gage bond clear­ing house, of a se­cur­it­ies deal­er as defined in the Stock Ex­change Act of 24 March 1995², or of a fin­an­cial mar­ket in­fra­struc­ture as defined in the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket In­fra­struc­ture Act of 19 June 2015³ may be used ex­clus­ively for the en­force­ment of value ad­ded tax. Pro­fes­sion­al secrecy un­der the Bank­ing Act, the Stock Ex­change Act and the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket In­fra­struc­ture Act must be ob­served.⁴

¹If no re­cords or only in­com­plete re­cords are avail­able or if the res­ults re­por­ted ob­vi­ously do not re­flect the true cir­cum­stances, the FTA shall make an as­sess­ment ac­cord­ing to its best judge­ment of the tax claim.

²The tax claim is es­tab­lished with an as­sess­ment no­tice.

If the ex­act es­tab­lish­ment of in­di­vidu­al facts im­port­ant to the as­sess­ment of the tax would cause ex­cess­ive in­con­veni­ence to the tax­able per­son, the FTA shall grant fa­cil­it­ies and al­low the tax to be de­term­ined ap­prox­im­ately, provided that as a res­ult there is no sig­ni­fic­ant loss of or in­crease in the tax, no ma­ter­i­al dis­tor­tion of the com­pet­it­ive situ­ation and no ex­cess­ive com­plic­a­tion of the tax re­turn for oth­er tax­able per­sons and the tax audit.

¹The pro­vi­sions of the APA¹ ap­ply. Art­icle 2 para­graph 1 APA does not ap­ply to the VAT pro­ced­ure.

²The au­thor­it­ies shall es­tab­lish the leg­ally rel­ev­ant cir­cum­stances ex of­fi­cio.

³The prin­ciple of the free con­sid­er­a­tion of evid­ence ap­plies. It is not per­miss­ible to make proof de­pend­ent on the pro­duc­tion of spe­cif­ic evid­ence.

¹The FTA shall is­sue ex of­fi­cio or on ap­plic­a­tion of the tax­able per­son all rul­ings ne­ces­sary for the im­pos­i­tion of the tax, in par­tic­u­lar if:

a.

the ex­ist­ence or scale of the tax li­ab­il­ity is dis­puted;

b.

the re­gis­tra­tion or de-re­gis­tra­tion in the Re­gister of Tax­able Per­sons is dis­puted;

c.

the ex­ist­ence or amount of the tax claim, of joint li­ab­il­ity or of the en­ti­tle­ment to a re­fund of taxes is dis­puted;

d.

the tax­able per­son or per­sons jointly li­able fail to pay the tax;

e.

oth­er ob­lig­a­tions arising un­der this Act or from or­din­ances based on it are not re­cog­nised or not ful­filled;

f.

in a spe­cif­ic case and as a pre­cau­tion­ary meas­ure it is ordered or ap­pears ne­ces­sary to es­tab­lish the tax li­ab­il­ity, the tax claim, the prin­ciples for the as­sess­ment of the tax, the ap­plic­able tax rate or joint li­ab­il­ity.

²Writ­ten no­tice of rul­ings shall be giv­en to the tax­able per­son. No­tice must in­clude in­struc­tions on the right of ap­peal and an ap­pro­pri­ate state­ment of the grounds for the rul­ing.

¹Rul­ings of the FTA may be con­tested by fil­ing an ob­jec­tion with­in 30 days of no­ti­fic­a­tion.

²The ob­jec­tion must be filed with the FTA in writ­ing. It must con­tain the pe­ti­tion, the grounds for the ob­jec­tion cit­ing the evid­ence and the sig­na­ture of the ap­pel­lant or of his rep­res­ent­at­ive. The rep­res­ent­at­ive must identi­fy him­self by writ­ten power of at­tor­ney. The evid­ence must be de­scribed in the let­ter of ob­jec­tion and en­closed with it.

³If the ob­jec­tion does not sat­is­fy these re­quire­ments or if the pe­ti­tion or its grounds lack the ne­ces­sary clar­ity, the FTA shall grant the ob­ject­ing party a short peri­od to re­vise the same. It shall com­bine this ad­di­tion­al peri­od with the warn­ing that if the peri­od ex­pires un­used, a de­cision will be made based on the files or, if the pe­ti­tion, grounds, sig­na­ture or power of at­tor­ney is not provided, that the ob­jec­tion will not be con­sidered.

⁴If the ob­jec­tion is raised against a prop­erly jus­ti­fied rul­ing of the FTA, on ap­plic­a­tion or with the con­sent of the ob­ject­ing party it must be for­war­ded as an ap­peal to the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court.

⁵The ob­jec­tion pro­ced­ure must be con­tin­ued des­pite with­draw­al of the ob­jec­tion if there are in­dic­a­tions that the con­tested rul­ing does not com­ply with the ap­plic­able pro­vi­sions of the law.

¹In gen­er­al, no costs are charged in rul­ing and ob­jec­tion pro­ced­ures. No leg­al costs are awar­ded.

²Re­gard­less of the out­come of the pro­ceed­ings, pro­ced­ur­al costs may be im­posed on the per­son or au­thor­ity that culp­ably caused them.

The re­view, ex­plan­a­tion and cor­rec­tion of as­sess­ment no­tices, rul­ings and ob­jec­tion de­cisions of the FTA are gov­erned by Art­icles 66–69 APA¹.

¹The tax­able per­son must settle the tax claim that arose in the re­port­ing peri­od with­in 60 days of the end of that peri­od.

²If the tax­able per­son makes no pay­ment or a pay­ment that is ob­vi­ously in­suf­fi­cient, the FTA, after is­su­ing a re­mind­er, shall seek to en­force its claim for the tax amount pro­vi­sion­ally pay­able for the re­port­ing peri­od in ques­tion. If no re­turn has been filed for the tax­able per­son or the re­turn is ob­vi­ously in­ad­equate, the FTA shall first make an as­sess­ment ac­cord­ing to its best judge­ment of the tax amount pro­vi­sion­ally pay­able.

³By fil­ing his op­pos­i­tion, the tax­able per­son in­stig­ates the pro­ced­ure to have his op­pos­i­tion set aside. The FTA is re­spons­ible for set­ting aside the op­pos­i­tion in the rul­ing and ap­peal pro­ced­ure.

⁴The rul­ing on the op­pos­i­tion may be con­tested by fil­ing an ob­jec­tion with the FTA with­in 10 days of it be­ing is­sued. The ob­jec­tion de­cision is fi­nal, sub­ject to para­graph 5.

⁵If the tax amount pro­vi­sion­ally pay­able that is the sub­ject of the en­force­ment pro­ceed­ings is the res­ult of an as­sess­ment made by the FTA ac­cord­ing to its best judge­ment, an ap­peal may be filed in the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court against the ob­jec­tion de­cision. The ap­peal has no sus­pens­ive ef­fect, un­less the court so or­ders on jus­ti­fied ap­plic­a­tion. The Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court makes the fi­nal de­cision.

⁶Art­icle 85a of the Fed­er­al Act of 11 April 1889¹ on Debt Col­lec­tion and Bank­ruptcy (DCBA) does not ap­ply.

⁷The col­lec­tion of a tax amount un­der para­graph 2 does not af­fect the fi­nal tax claim un­der Art­icles 72, 78 and 82 from be­ing es­tab­lished. If the tax claim can­not be es­tab­lished due to a fail­ure of the tax­able per­son to act, in par­tic­u­lar be­cause he fails to cor­rect er­rors un­der Art­icle 72 or to re­quest a rul­ing un­der Art­icle 82, on the pre­scrip­tion of the right to es­tab­lish the tax, the tax amounts es­tab­lished by the FTA un­der para­graph 2 be­come the tax claim.²

⁸In­stead of a pay­ment of the tax amount, the tax­able per­son may provide se­cur­ity in ac­cord­ance with to Art­icle 93 para­graph 7.

⁹Im­me­di­ately after re­ceipt of the pay­ment or the se­cur­ity, the FTA shall with­draw its debt en­force­ment claim.

¹In the event of late pay­ment, in­terest is pay­able without re­mind­er.

²In­terest on late pay­ment is not pay­able on an ad­di­tion­al charge if it is the res­ult of an er­ror which, if it had been cor­rectly pro­cessed, would not have led to loss of tax for the Con­fed­er­a­tion.

¹If the tax re­turn dis­closes a sur­plus in fa­vour of the tax­able per­son, it is re­fun­ded.

²The fore­go­ing para­graph does not ap­ply in the event of:

a.

the set-off of this sur­plus against im­port tax li­ab­il­it­ies, even if they are not yet due;

b.

the use of the sur­plus as se­cur­ity for tax un­der Art­icle 94 para­graph 1;

c.

the use of the sur­plus for set-off among fed­er­al agen­cies.

³The tax­able per­son may re­claim taxes paid but not due if the tax claim is not yet leg­ally bind­ing.¹

⁴If the sur­plus un­der para­graph 1 or the re­fund un­der para­graph 3 is paid out later than 60 days after re­ceipt of the tax re­turn or of the writ­ten claim to the en­ti­tle­ment by the FTA, in­terest shall be paid on the amount due for the peri­od from the 61st day un­til pay­ment or re­fund.

¹If the claim for tax, in­terest, costs and fines is not sat­is­fied, the FTA shall in­stig­ate debt col­lec­tion pro­ceed­ings and take whatever civil and en­force­ment meas­ures that serve the pur­pose.

²If the tax claim is not yet leg­ally bind­ing and if it is dis­puted, the FTA shall is­sue a rul­ing. Un­til a leg­ally bind­ing rul­ing is is­sued, the fi­nal rank­ing of cred­it­ors is sus­pen­ded.¹

³By fil­ing op­pos­i­tion to the en­force­ment pro­ceed­ings, the tax­able per­son in­stig­ates the pro­ced­ure for to have his op­pos­i­tion set aside. The FTA is re­spons­ible for set­ting aside the op­pos­i­tion.

⁴…²

⁵The FTA must re­gister the tax claim in the pub­lic in­vent­or­ies or on pub­lic no­tices to cred­it­ors.³

⁶The taxes in­curred in the con­text of en­force­ment pro­ceed­ings rep­res­ent ex­ploit­a­tion costs.

⁷The FTA may in jus­ti­fied cases waive the col­lec­tion of the tax if the en­force­ment pro­ceed­ings are not ex­pec­ted to be suc­cess­ful.

¹If pay­ment of the tax, in­terest and costs with­in the pre­scribed peri­od causes the tax­able per­son sig­ni­fic­ant hard­ship, the FTA and the tax­able per­son may agree on an ex­ten­sion of the pay­ment peri­od or on in­stal­ment pay­ments.

²Pay­ment fa­cil­it­ies may be made sub­ject to the pro­vi­sion of ap­pro­pri­ate se­cur­ity.

³Pay­ment fa­cil­it­ies lapse if the re­quire­ments lapse or if the con­di­tions to which they are tied are not ful­filled.

⁴The sub­mis­sion of an ap­plic­a­tion for an agree­ment on pay­ment fa­cil­it­ies does not lead to the sus­pen­sion of en­force­ment pro­ceed­ings.

¹The right to en­force the tax claim, in­terest and costs pre­scribes five years from the time when the cor­res­pond­ing claim be­comes leg­ally bind­ing.

²The pre­script­ive peri­od is sus­pen­ded as long as the tax­able per­son can­not be pro­ceeded against in Switzer­land.

³The pre­script­ive peri­od is in­ter­rup­ted by every ac­tion re­quest­ing pay­ment and every morator­i­um by the FTA and by every as­ser­tion of the claim by the tax­able per­son.

⁴In­ter­rup­tion and sus­pen­sion are ef­fect­ive to­wards all per­sons li­able for pay­ment.

⁵Pre­scrip­tion ap­plies in any event ten years after the end of the year in which the claim be­came leg­ally bind­ing.

⁶If a cer­ti­fic­ate of short­fall is is­sued in re­spect of a tax claim, the pre­script­ive peri­od for col­lec­tion is gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions of the DCBA¹.

¹The FTA may abate bind­ingly as­sessed taxes in whole or in part if the tax­able per­son:

a.

has for an ex­cus­able reas­on not in­voiced and col­lec­ted the tax, a ret­ro­act­ive trans­fer is not pos­sible or reas­on­able and pay­ment of the tax would res­ult in ser­i­ous hard­ship;

b.

owes the tax simply as a res­ult of not ob­serving form­al reg­u­la­tions or of pro­cessing er­rors and it is ob­vi­ous or the tax­able per­son proves that there is no loss of tax for the Con­fed­er­a­tion; or

c.

for an ex­cus­able reas­on could not ful­fil his as­sess­ment ob­lig­a­tions, but can prove or show cred­ibly in ret­ro­spect that the as­sess­ment ac­cord­ing to its best judge­ment un­der­taken by the FTA is too high; in this case tax abate­ment is pos­sible only up to the amount over-as­sessed.

²The FTA may also con­sent to a tax abate­ment or waive se­cur­ity for its claim in com­pos­i­tion pro­ceed­ings.

³The re­quest for abate­ment must be jus­ti­fied in writ­ing and be sub­mit­ted to the FTA to­geth­er with the ne­ces­sary evid­ence. There is no right of ob­jec­tion to the rul­ing of the FTA. An ap­peal may be made to the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court.

⁴The sub­mis­sion of a re­quest for a tax abate­ment does not lead to the sus­pen­sion of en­force­ment pro­ceed­ings for leg­ally as­sessed taxes.

⁵The tax abate­ment pro­ced­ure is free of cost. However, costs may be im­posed in full or in part on the per­son sub­mit­ting the re­quest if he has sub­mit­ted an ob­vi­ously un­jus­ti­fied re­quest.

⁶…¹

¹The FTA may re­quire se­cur­ity for taxes, in­terest and costs, even if they are not bind­ingly as­sessed or due, if:

a.

their pay­ment on time ap­pears to be at risk;

b.

the tax­able per­son makes pre­par­a­tions to give up his dom­i­cile, re­gistered of­fice or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment in Switzer­land or to be de­leted from the Swiss Com­mer­cial Re­gister;

c.

the tax­able per­son is in ar­rears with his pay­ment;

d.

the tax­able per­son takes over all or part of a busi­ness over which bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings have been com­menced;

e.

the tax­able per­son sub­mits re­turns that are ob­vi­ously too low.

²If the tax­able per­son waives ex­emp­tion from tax li­ab­il­ity (Art. 11) or opts for the tax­a­tion of sup­plies ex­empt without cred­it (Art. 22), the FTA may de­mand from the per­son se­cur­ity pur­su­ant to para­graph 7.

³The rul­ing re­quir­ing se­cur­ity must cite the leg­al reas­on for the se­cur­ity, the amount to be se­cured and the of­fice that ac­cepts the se­cur­ity; it qual­i­fies as a freez­ing or­der in terms of Art­icle 274 DCBA¹. There is no right of ob­jec­tion against the rul­ing re­quir­ing se­cur­ity.

⁴An ap­peal may be filed against the rul­ing be­fore the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court.

⁵Ap­peals against rul­ings re­quir­ing se­cur­ity do not have sus­pens­ive ef­fect.

⁶The ser­vice of a rul­ing con­cern­ing the tax claim qual­i­fies as the rais­ing of an ac­tion un­der Art­icle 279 DCBA. The peri­od for in­sti­tut­ing debt col­lec­tion pro­ced­ures be­gins to run when the rul­ing con­cern­ing the tax claim be­comes leg­ally bind­ing.

⁷Se­cur­ity must be provided by cash de­pos­it, solvent guar­an­tees, bank guar­an­tees, mort­gage cer­ti­fic­ates, life in­sur­ance policies with sur­render value, lis­ted Swiss franc bonds is­sued by Swiss bor­row­ers or cash bonds is­sued by Swiss banks.

¹A sur­plus on the tax re­turn in fa­vour of the tax­able per­son may:

a.

be set off against debts from pri­or peri­ods;

b.

be cred­ited for set-off against an­ti­cip­ated amounts pay­able for sub­sequent peri­ods if the tax­able per­son is in ar­rears with the pay­ment of tax or for oth­er reas­ons it ap­pears prob­able that the tax claim is at risk; the amount cred­ited car­ries in­terest from the 61^st day after re­ceipt by the FTA of the tax re­turn un­til the date of the set-off at the rate that ap­plies to re­fund in­terest; or

c.

be set off against se­cur­ity re­quired by the FTA.

²In the case of tax­able per­sons without a dom­i­cile, re­gistered of­fice or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment in Switzer­land, the FTA may also re­quire se­cur­ity for an­ti­cip­ated debts un­der Art­icle 93 para­graph 7.

³If pay­ments are re­peatedly in ar­rears, the FTA may re­quire the tax­able per­son to make monthly or half-monthly ad­vance pay­ments.

A leg­al en­tity or a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment of a for­eign busi­ness may not be de­leted from the Swiss Com­mer­cial Re­gister un­til the FTA has no­ti­fied the ad­min­is­tra­tion com­pet­ent for keep­ing the re­gister that the tax due has been paid or se­cur­ity has been provided.

¹Any per­son who wil­fully or neg­li­gently re­duces the tax claim to the det­ri­ment of the state:

a.

by not de­clar­ing in a tax peri­od all re­ceipts, de­clar­ing re­ceipts from sup­plies ex­empt from the tax that are too high, not de­clar­ing all sup­plies sub­ject to ac­quis­i­tion tax or by de­clar­ing ex­penses en­titling to an in­put tax de­duc­tion that are too high;

b.

by ob­tain­ing an in­cor­rect re­fund; or

c.

by ob­tain­ing an un­jus­ti­fied tax abate­ment.

shall be li­able to a fine not ex­ceed­ing 400,000 francs.

²The fine shall not ex­ceed 800,000 francs if the tax evaded in the cases men­tioned in para­graph 1 is trans­ferred in a form that en­titles the tax­able per­son to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion.

³Any per­son who re­duces the tax due to the state by de­clar­ing the tax factors rel­ev­ant for es­tab­lish­ment of the tax truth­fully, but qual­i­fy­ing them in­cor­rectly for tax pur­poses, in that he wil­fully fails to prop­erly ap­ply clear leg­al pro­vi­sions, in­struc­tions from the au­thor­it­ies or pub­lished prac­tice rules and does not in­form the au­thor­it­ies there­of in writ­ing in ad­vance shall be li­able to a fine of up to 200,000 francs. If the of­fence is com­mit­ted through neg­li­gence, the fine is up to 20,000 francs.

⁴Any per­son who re­duces the tax claim to the det­ri­ment of the state:

a.

by wil­fully or neg­li­gently fail­ing to de­clare or in­cor­rectly de­clar­ing or con­ceal­ing goods on im­port;

b.

by wil­fully fail­ing to provide in­form­a­tion or provid­ing false or in­com­plete in­form­a­tion in re­sponse to an en­quiry dur­ing an of­fi­cial audit or ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­ced­ure that has as its ob­ject the es­tab­lish­ment of the tax claim or tax abate­ment.

shall be li­able to a fine not ex­ceed­ing 800,000 francs.

⁵An at­tempt to com­mit tax eva­sion is also an of­fence.

⁶If the tax ad­vant­age is ob­tained on the basis of an in­cor­rect re­turn, the of­fence of tax eva­sion is not sub­ject to a pen­alty un­til the peri­od for cor­rec­tion of er­rors in the re­turn has ex­pired (Art. 72 para. 1) and the er­ror has not been cor­rec­ted.

¹The fine is de­term­ined by ap­ply­ing Art­icle 106 para­graph 3 of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code (SCC)¹; Art­icle 34 SCC may be ap­plied by ana­logy. If the tax ad­vant­age ob­tained by the act is great­er than the threatened pen­alty and the of­fence was com­mit­ted wil­fully, the fine may be in­creased to a max­im­um of two times the tax ad­vant­age.

²In ag­grav­at­ing cir­cum­stances, the max­im­um fine that the of­fence car­ries may be in­creased by half. At the same time, a cus­todi­al sen­tence not ex­ceed­ing two years may be im­posed. Ag­grav­at­ing cir­cum­stances are:

a.

so­li­cit­ing one or more per­sons to com­mit an of­fence against VAT law;

b.

com­mit­ting of­fences against VAT law for com­mer­cial gain.

Any per­son who wil­fully or neg­li­gently:

a.

does not re­gister as a tax­able per­son;

b.

des­pite be­ing is­sued with a writ­ten de­mand, does not sub­mit a tax re­turn on time;

c.

does not de­clare the tax in the right peri­od;

d.

does not provide se­cur­ity prop­erly;

e.

does not keep, com­plete, re­tain or present books of ac­count, vouch­ers, busi­ness doc­u­ments and oth­er re­cords prop­erly;

f.

des­pite be­ing is­sued with a writ­ten de­mand, does not give or gives false in­form­a­tion, or does not de­clare or de­clares in­cor­rectly the data and goods ne­ces­sary for the tax im­pos­i­tion or for re­view of the tax li­ab­il­ity;

g.

de­tails on in­voices VAT that is not pay­able or is not pay­able in the amount stated;

h.

by quot­ing a re­gister num­ber, falsely claims to be entered in the Re­gister of Tax­able Per­sons;

i.

des­pite be­ing warned, ob­structs, hinders or makes im­possible the prop­er per­form­ance of an audit;

shall be li­able to a fine un­less the of­fence car­ries a high­er pen­alty un­der an­oth­er pro­vi­sion.

Any per­son who pur­chases, re­ceives as a gift, re­ceives as a pledge or oth­er­wise takes pos­ses­sion of, con­ceals, helps to sell or brings in­to cir­cu­la­tion goods, in re­spect of which he knows or must as­sume that the im­port tax pay­able has been wil­fully evaded shall be li­able to the same pen­alty as ap­plies to the prin­ciple of­fend­er.

If a fine not ex­ceed­ing 100,000 francs would be ap­plic­able and if the tra­cing of the of­fend­ers un­der Art­icle 6 ACLA¹ would re­quire in­vest­ig­a­tions the cost of which would be dis­pro­por­tion­ate to the pen­alty oth­er­wise for­feited, the au­thor­ity may dis­pense with pur­su­ing the of­fend­ers and in­stead or­der the busi­ness (Art. 7 ACLA) to pay the fine.

¹Art­icles 7, 9, 11 and 12 para­graphs 4 and 13 ACLA¹ do not ap­ply.

²The im­pos­i­tion of a pen­alty un­der Art­icle 98 let­ter a of this Act does not pre­clude the im­pos­i­tion of a pen­alty un­der Art­icles 96 and 97.

³The im­pos­i­tion of a pen­alty un­der Art­icle 14 ACLA pre­cludes the im­pos­i­tion of an ad­di­tion­al pen­alty for the same crim­in­al act un­der Art­icles 96 and 97 of this Act.

⁴If an act meets the cri­terion of eva­sion of im­port tax or of re­ceipt of un­taxed goods as well as of­fence to be pur­sued by the FCA against oth­er fed­er­al tax de­crees, the pen­alty for the most ser­i­ous vi­ol­a­tion shall be im­posed; it may be in­creased ap­pro­pri­ately.

⁵If the per­pet­rat­or through one or more acts ful­fils the re­quire­ments for the im­pos­i­tion of two or more pen­al­ties that fall with­in the area of com­pet­ence of the FTA, the pen­alty for the most ser­i­ous vi­ol­a­tion shall be im­posed; it may be in­creased ap­pro­pri­ately.

¹If the tax­able per­son re­ports him­self for an of­fence un­der this Act be­fore it comes to the at­ten­tion of the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity, he will not be pro­sec­uted if:

a.

the per­son as­sists the au­thor­ity in a reas­on­able man­ner in es­tab­lish­ing the tax pay­able or re­fund­able; and

b.

the per­son makes a ser­i­ous ef­fort to pay the tax due or re­fund­able.

²If a non-tax­able per­son who has com­mit­ted an of­fence un­der this Act or has par­ti­cip­ated in such an of­fence re­ports the of­fence, he will not be pro­sec­uted.

³A leg­al en­tity re­ports it­self through its ex­ec­ut­ive bod­ies or rep­res­ent­at­ives. Joint and sev­er­al li­ab­il­ity un­der Art­icle 12 para­graph 3 ACLA¹ of the ex­ec­ut­ive bod­ies or of the rep­res­ent­at­ives does not ap­ply and no pro­sec­u­tion will be brought.

⁴A cor­rec­tion of the re­turn un­der Art­icle 72 para­graph 2 qual­i­fies as self-re­port­ing.

¹With the ex­cep­tion of Art­icles 63 para­graphs 1 and 2, 69 para­graph 2, 73 para­graph 1 last sen­tence and 77 para­graph 4, the ACLA¹ gov­erns pro­sec­u­tion.

²Pro­sec­u­tion is the re­spons­ib­il­ity of the FTA for do­mest­ic tax and ac­quis­i­tion tax, and of the FCA for im­port tax.

³In closely re­lated crim­in­al cases in which both the FTA and the FCA have jur­is­dic­tion, the FTA may by agree­ment with the FCA de­cide to join the pro­sec­u­tions un­der one of the two au­thor­it­ies.

⁴Pro­sec­u­tion may be dis­pensed with if the level of culp­ab­il­ity and the con­sequences of the crime are neg­li­gible (Art. 52 SCC²). In these cases a non-in­ter­ven­tion or no-pro­ceed­ings rul­ing is is­sued.

⁵If the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity must also in­vest­ig­ate or judge oth­er of­fences to which the ACLA ap­plies, para­graph 1 ap­plies to all of­fences.

¹The ac­cused has the right to fair crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings in ac­cord­ance with the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion and the rel­ev­ant le­gis­la­tion on crim­in­al pro­ced­ure.

²The ac­cused is not ob­liged to in­crim­in­ate him­self in crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings.

³The in­form­a­tion (Art. 68 and 73) giv­en by the ac­cused in the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings or evid­ence from an audit un­der Art­icle 78 may be used in crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings only if the ac­cused con­sents thereto.

⁴The open­ing of a crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion must be no­ti­fied in writ­ing to the sus­pect without delay un­less there is good cause for not do­ing so.

¹The right to ini­ti­ate a crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion pre­scribes as fol­lows:

a.

for in­fringe­ments of pro­ced­ur­al ob­lig­a­tions: at the time when the tax claim re­lat­ing to the of­fence be­comes leg­ally bind­ing;

b.¹

in re­la­tion to do­mest­ic and ac­quis­i­tion tax:

1.

in the case of con­tra­ven­tions un­der Art­icle 96 para­graphs 1–3: six months after the rel­ev­ant tax claim be­comes leg­ally bind­ing,

2.

for tax eva­sion of­fences un­der Art­icle 96 para­graph 4: two years after the rel­ev­ant tax claim be­comes leg­ally bind­ing,

3.

for of­fences un­der Art­icle 97 para­graph 2 and un­der Art­icles 14–17 ACLA²: sev­en years after the end of the rel­ev­ant tax peri­od;

c.³

in re­la­tion to im­port tax: for all mis­de­mean­ours and con­tra­ven­tions un­der Art­icles 96, 97 para­graph 2 and 99 and in the case of mis­de­mean­ours un­der Art­icles 14–17 ACLA: in sev­en years;

d. and e.⁴

²The pre­script­ive peri­od for pro­sec­u­tion ceases to ap­ply if be­fore ex­piry of the pre­script­ive peri­od a sum­mary pen­alty or­der or a judg­ment in the first in­stance is is­sued.

³The pre­script­ive peri­od for the pay­ment and re­fund ob­lig­a­tion un­der Art­icle 12 ACLA is gov­erned:

a.

in prin­ciple by Art­icle 42;

b.

if an of­fence covered by Art­icle 96 para­graph 4, 97 para­graph 2 or 99 or by Art­icles 14–17 ACLA is ful­filled, by para­graphs 1 and 2.

⁴The right to con­duct a crim­in­al in­vest­ig­a­tion that has already been ini­ti­ated pre­scribes after five years; the pre­script­ive peri­od is sus­pen­ded for as long as the ac­cused per­son is abroad.

¹The fines and costs im­posed in the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings in re­spect of tax of­fences are col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 86–90. Art­icle 36 SCC¹ ap­plies.

²Pre­scrip­tion of the right to col­lect fines and costs are gov­erned by Art­icle 91.

¹The Fed­er­al Coun­cil:

a.

reg­u­lates the re­lief from VAT for be­ne­fi­ciar­ies un­der Art­icle 2 of the Host State Act of 22 June 2007¹ who are ex­empt from li­ab­il­ity for tax;

b.

de­term­ines the re­quire­ments that cus­tom­ers who have their dom­i­cile, re­gistered of­fice or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment abroad must sat­is­fy in or­der to be eli­gible for a re­fund of tax levied on Swiss ter­rit­ory on sup­plies made to them or on their im­ports that are covered by re­cip­roc­al law of the land in which they have their dom­i­cile, re­gistered of­fice or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment; in prin­ciple the same re­quire­ments ap­ply as ex­ist for do­mest­ic tax­able per­sons in re­spect of the in­put tax de­duc­tion;

c.²

reg­u­lates the VAT treat­ment of sup­plies to per­sons who are em­ploy­ees and at the same time closely re­lated per­sons; in do­ing so, it shall take ac­count of the treat­ment of such sup­plies in the case of dir­ect fed­er­al tax­a­tion and may spe­cify ex­cep­tions to Art­icle 24 para­graph 2.

²The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may is­sue pro­vi­sions de­part­ing from this Act con­cern­ing the tax­a­tion of turnovers on im­ports of gold coins and fine gold.

³The Fed­er­al Coun­cil is­sues the im­ple­ment­ing reg­u­la­tions.

The FDF:

a.

defines mar­ket con­form in­terest rates for in­terest on late pay­ment and re­funds and up­dates them peri­od­ic­ally;

b.

de­term­ines the cases in which in­terest on late pay­ment is not im­posed;

c.

stip­u­lates up to what amount neg­li­gible amounts of in­terest on late pay­ment and re­funds will not be im­posed or are not pay­able.

¹The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ap­point a con­sultat­ive com­mit­tee com­pris­ing rep­res­ent­at­ives of tax­able per­sons, the can­tons, aca­demia, tax spe­cial­ists, and con­sumers.¹

²The con­sultat­ive com­mit­tee ad­vises on amend­ments to this Act and to the im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions and prac­tice rules based on it in re­la­tion to their ef­fects on tax­able per­sons and the eco­nomy.

³It com­ments on drafts and may is­sue re­com­mend­a­tions for amend­ments of its own ac­cord.

The VAT Act of 2 Septem­ber 1999¹ is re­pealed.

The fol­low­ing fed­er­al acts are amended as fol­lows:

¹

¹The pre­vi­ous stat­utory pro­vi­sions and the reg­u­la­tions is­sued on the basis there­of re­main, sub­ject to Art­icle 113, ap­plic­able to all mat­ters that oc­curred and leg­al cir­cum­stances that arose while they were val­id. Pre­scrip­tion con­tin­ues to be gov­erned by Art­icles 49 and 50 of the pre­vi­ous law.

²Sup­plies made be­fore this Act came in­to force and im­ports of goods for which the im­port tax debt arose be­fore this Act came in­to force are gov­erned by the former law.

³Sup­plies made in part be­fore this Act came in­to force must be taxed un­der former law for this part. Sup­plies made in part after this Act comes in­to force are tax­able un­der the new law for this part.

¹In or­der to de­term­ine wheth­er the ex­emp­tion from tax li­ab­il­ity un­der Art­icle 10 para­graph 2 ex­ists when this Act comes in­to force, the new law shall be ap­plied to the sup­plies tax­able un­der this Act gen­er­ated in the twelve months pri­or to it com­ing in­to force.

²The pro­vi­sions on ret­ro­spect­ive in­put tax de­duc­tion un­der Art­icle 32 also ap­ply to sup­plies that did not en­title the tax­able per­son to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion be­fore this Act came in­to force.

³Sub­ject to Art­icle 91, the new pro­ced­ur­al law ap­plies to all pro­ced­ures pending on the date that this Act comes in­to force.

¹Tax­able per­sons may, when this Act comes in­to force, again make use of the elec­tion op­tions provided for in this Act. If the elec­tion op­tions are linked to spe­cif­ic dead­lines, they be­gin to run again on the date that this Act comes in­to force.

²If the tax­able per­son does not re­spond to the elec­tion op­tions with­in 90 days of this Act com­ing in­to force, it is as­sumed that the per­son is abid­ing by his elec­tion, provided this con­tin­ues to be leg­ally pos­sible.

¹If the tax rates change, Art­icles 112 and 113 ap­ply by ana­logy. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall up­date the max­im­um amounts laid down in Art­icle 37 para­graph 1 as ap­pro­pri­ate.¹

²Tax­able per­sons must be al­lowed suf­fi­ciently long peri­ods for the re­port­ing of the tax amounts at the pre­vi­ous rates that are geared to the nature of the sup­ply and ser­vice agree­ments.

The in­put tax de­duc­tion may not be ret­ro­spect­ively can­celled on col­lect­ors’ items such as works of art, an­tiques and such­like in re­spect of which in­put tax was already de­duc­ted be­fore the Amend­ment of 30 Septem­ber 2016 comes in­to force, provided the sale is made on Swiss ter­rit­ory and VAT is paid on the en­tire selling price.

¹This Act is sub­ject to an op­tion­al ref­er­en­dum.¹

²Sub­ject to para­graph 3, it shall come in­to force on 1 Janu­ary 2010. The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall stip­u­late the com­mence­ment date for Art­icle 34 para­graph 3 and 78 para­graph 4.²

³If a ref­er­en­dum is re­ques­ted and if the Act is ap­proved by pop­u­lar vote, the Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine the com­mence­ment date.