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Ordinance
on Value Added Tax
(Value Added Tax Ordinance, VAT Ordinance)

English is not an official language of the Swiss Confederation. This translation is provided for information purposes only and has no legal force.

of 27 November 2009 (Status as of 1 March 2021)

The Swiss Federal Council,

based on the Value Added Tax Act of 12 June 20091 (VAT Act),

ordains:

Title 1 General Provisions

Art. 1 Swiss territory  

(Art. 3 let. a VAT Act)

Swiss ocean-go­ing ships do not qual­i­fy as ter­rit­ory of the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion for the pur­poses of Art­icle 3 let­ter a VAT Act.

Art. 2 Pledge and special terms of sale  

(Art. 3 let. d VAT Act)

1 The sale of goods rep­res­ents a sup­ply of goods even if a re­ser­va­tion of title is re­cor­ded.

2 The trans­fer of own­er­ship of goods as se­cur­ity or as a pledge does not rep­res­ent a sup­ply of goods. If the right un­der the trans­fer of own­er­ship as se­cur­ity or un­der the pledge is en­forced, a sup­ply of goods takes place.

3 A sale of goods with sim­ul­tan­eous lease­back to the seller for use (sale and lease­back busi­ness) does not qual­i­fy as a sup­ply of goods if at the time of the con­clu­sion of the con­tract a re-trans­fer is agreed. In this case the ser­vice of the lessor does not qual­i­fy as mak­ing goods avail­able for use, but as a fin­an­cing ser­vice un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­ber 19 let­ter a VAT Act.

Art. 3 Declaration of subjection on import of goods  

(Art. 7 para. 3 let. a VAT Act)2

1 ...3

2 If the im­port is made in the sup­pli­er’s own name based on a de­clar­a­tion of sub­jec­tion, for seri­al trans­ac­tions the pri­or sup­plies of goods are deemed to be made abroad and the sub­sequent sup­plies on Swiss ter­rit­ory.

3 If the sup­pli­er does not in­tend to im­port in its own name, it must dis­close this on the cus­tom­er’s in­voice.4

2 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

3 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

4 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 4 Supply of goods from abroad onto Swiss territory from a warehouse on Swiss territory 5  

(Art. 7 para. 1 VAT Act)

In re­la­tion to goods that have been moved from abroad in­to a ware­house on Swiss ter­rit­ory and are de­livered from this ware­house, the place of sup­ply is loc­ated abroad if the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply and the con­sid­er­a­tion to be paid are known at the time the goods are moved onto Swiss ter­rit­ory and the goods are re­leased for free cir­cu­la­tion at the time of sup­ply.

5 Amended by No I of the O of 30 Oct. 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 3839).

Art. 4a Time of change in the place of supply in respect of mail-order supplies 6  

(Art. 7 para. 3 let. b VAT Act)

1 Where goods sup­plied from abroad onto Swiss ter­rit­ory are ex­empt from im­port tax be­cause of the neg­li­gible amount of tax due, the place of sup­ply is deemed to be abroad un­til the end of the month in which the sup­pli­er reaches the turnover threshold of 100 000 francs from such sup­plies.

2 From the fol­low­ing month the place of sup­ply for all sup­plies made by the sup­pli­er from abroad onto Swiss ter­rit­ory is deemed to be on Swiss ter­rit­ory. From this time, the sup­pli­er must im­port the goods in its own name.

3 The place of sup­ply re­mains on Swiss ter­rit­ory un­til the end of any cal­en­dar year in which the sup­pli­er fails to reach the turnover threshold of 100 000 francs from sup­plies in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1.

4 If the sup­pli­er fails to reach the turnover threshold but does not no­ti­fy the FTA of this fact in writ­ing, the sup­pli­er is deemed to be sub­ject to the VAT Act in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 7 para­graph 3 let­ter a.

6 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 15 Aug. 2018, in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 3143).

Art. 5 Permanent establishment  

(Art. 7 paras. 2, 8 and 10 para. 3 VAT Act)

1 A per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment is a fixed place of busi­ness through which the activ­ity of the busi­ness is wholly or partly car­ried on.

2 In par­tic­u­lar the fol­low­ing qual­i­fy as per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ments:

a.
branches;
b.
factor­ies;
c.
work­shops;
d.
points of pur­chase or sale;
e.
per­man­ent rep­res­ent­a­tions;
f.
mines and oth­er sites for the ex­trac­tion of nat­ur­al re­sources;
g.
con­struc­tion and as­sembly sites last­ing for at least twelve months;
h.
prop­erty used for ag­ri­cul­tur­al, graz­ing and forestry pur­poses.

3 In par­tic­u­lar the fol­low­ing are not per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ments:

a.
pure dis­tri­bu­tion ware­houses;
b.
means of trans­port that are em­ployed for their ori­gin­al pur­pose;
c.
in­form­a­tion, rep­res­ent­a­tion and ad­vert­ising of­fices of busi­nesses that are au­thor­ised only to per­form cor­res­pond­ing sup­port activ­it­ies.
Art. 5a Shipping traffic on Lake Constance, the Untersee and the Rhine to the Swiss border below Basel 7  

(Art. 8 para. 2 let. e VAT Act)

Pas­sen­ger trans­port by ship on Lake Con­stance, the Un­tersee and the Rhine between the Un­tersee and the Swiss bor­der be­low Basel is deemed to be a sup­ply made abroad.

7 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 12 Oct. 2011, in force since 1 Jan. 2012 (AS 2011 4739).

Art. 6 Transport services  

(Art. 9 VAT Act)

A trans­port ser­vice is also giv­en if a means of trans­port with op­er­at­ing staff is made avail­able for trans­port pur­poses.

Art. 6a Place of supply for restaurant, cultural and similar supplies while transporting passengers in border areas 8  

(Art. 9 VAT Act)

1 If sup­plies un­der Art­icle 8 para­graph 2 let­ters c and d VAT Act are made while trans­port­ing pas­sen­gers in bor­der areas that are partly on Swiss ter­rit­ory and partly abroad or are on Lake Con­stance, and if the place of sup­ply can­not be clearly de­term­ined as be­ing on Swiss ter­rit­ory or abroad, the sup­ply is deemed to be made at the place where the per­son mak­ing the sup­ply has its place of busi­ness, or a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment or, in the ab­sence of such a place of busi­ness or such a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment, its dom­i­cile or the place from which it works.

2 If the tax­able per­son proves that a sup­ply un­der para­graph 1 was made abroad, Art­icle 8 para­graph 2 let­ters c and d VAT Act ap­plies.

8 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 12 Oct. 2011, in force since 1 Jan. 2012 (AS 2011 4739).

Title 2 Domestic Tax

Chapter 1 Taxable Person

Section 1 Business Activity and Turnover Threshold

Art. 7 Permanent establishments of foreign businesses  

(Art. 10 VAT Act)

All per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ments on Swiss ter­rit­ory of a busi­ness dom­i­ciled abroad qual­i­fy to­geth­er as a single in­de­pend­ent tax­able per­son.

Art. 89  

9 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 9 Exemption and termination of the exemption from tax liability for Swiss businesses 10  

(Art. 10 para. 2 let. a and c and 14 para. 1 let. a and 3 VAT Act)

1 Busi­nesses with place of busi­ness, dom­i­cile or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment on Swiss ter­rit­ory that com­mence their activ­ity or ex­tend their activ­ity by tak­ing over a busi­ness or open­ing a new busi­ness di­vi­sion are ex­empt from tax li­ab­il­ity if at the time, based on the cir­cum­stances, it must be as­sumed that the turnover threshold re­ferred to in Art­icle 10 para­graph 2 let­ter a or c VAT Act for sup­plies made on Swiss ter­rit­ory and abroad will not be achieved in the fol­low­ing twelve months. If it is not yet pos­sible at the time to as­sess wheth­er the turnover threshold will be achieved, a re-as­sess­ment must be car­ried out with­in three months at the latest.

2 Where it must be as­sumed based on the re-as­sess­ment that the turnover threshold will be achieved, the ex­emp­tion from tax li­ab­il­ity ends either:

a.
on the date of com­mence­ment or ex­pan­sion of the activ­ity; or
b.
on the date of the re-as­sess­ment, but at the latest at the be­gin­ning of the fourth month.

3 For busi­nesses pre­vi­ously ex­empt from tax li­ab­il­ity, the ex­emp­tion from tax li­ab­il­ity ends with the busi­ness year in which the rel­ev­ant turnover threshold is achieved. If the activ­ity giv­ing rise to tax li­ab­il­ity was not car­ried on for a full year, the turnover must be ex­tra­pol­ated to a full year.

10 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 9a Exemption and termination of the exemption from tax liability for foreign businesses 11  

(Art. 10 para. 2 let. a and c and 14 para. 1 let. b and 3 VAT Act)

1 Busi­nesses that do not have a place of busi­ness, dom­i­cile or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment on Swiss ter­rit­ory that make a sup­ply for the first time on Swiss ter­rit­ory are ex­empt from tax li­ab­il­ity if at the time, based on the cir­cum­stances, it must be as­sumed that the turnover threshold re­ferred to in Art­icle 10 para­graph 2 let­ter a or c VAT Act for sup­plies made on Swiss ter­rit­ory and abroad not will be achieved with­in the fol­low­ing twelve months. If it is not yet pos­sible at the time to as­sess wheth­er the turnover threshold will be achieved, a re-as­sess­ment must be car­ried out with­in three months at the latest.

2 Where it must be as­sumed based on the re-as­sess­ment that the turnover threshold will be achieved, the ex­emp­tion from tax li­ab­il­ity ends either:

a.
when a sup­ply is made for the first time on Swiss ter­rit­ory; or
b.
on the date of the re-as­sess­ment, but at the latest at the be­gin­ning of the fourth month.

3 For busi­nesses pre­vi­ously ex­empt from tax li­ab­il­ity, the ex­emp­tion from tax li­ab­il­ity ends with the busi­ness year in which the rel­ev­ant turnover threshold is achieved. If the activ­ity giv­ing rise to tax li­ab­il­ity was not car­ried on for a full year, the turnover must be ex­tra­pol­ated to a full year.

11 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 12 Nov. 2014 (AS 2014 3847). Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 10 Telecommunication and electronic services  

(Art. 10 para. 2 let. b VAT Act)

1 Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion and elec­tron­ic ser­vices are in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
ra­dio and tele­vi­sion ser­vices;
b.
the pro­vi­sion of ac­cess au­thor­isa­tion, in par­tic­u­lar to fixed line and mo­bile net­works, to satel­lite com­mu­nic­a­tion and to oth­er in­form­a­tion net­works;
c.
the pro­vi­sion and guar­an­tee of data trans­fer ca­pa­city;
d.
the pro­vi­sion of web­sites, web­host­ing, and the tele-ser­vi­cing of pro­grams and equip­ment;
e.
the elec­tron­ic pro­vi­sion of soft­ware and its up­dat­ing;
f.
the elec­tron­ic pro­vi­sion of im­ages, texts and in­form­a­tion and the pro­vi­sion of data­bases;
g.12
the elec­tron­ic pro­vi­sion of mu­sic, films and games, in­clud­ing gambling.

2 Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion or elec­tron­ic ser­vices do not in­clude in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
the mere com­mu­nic­a­tion between the per­sons provid­ing and re­ceiv­ing the ser­vice by wire, wire­less, op­tic­al or oth­er elec­tro-mag­net­ic me­dia;
b.
edu­ca­tion­al ser­vices with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­ber 11 VAT Act in in­ter­act­ive form;
c.
the mere lend­ing for use of pre­cisely des­ig­nated equip­ment or equip­ment parts for the sole use of the less­ee for the trans­mit­tal of data.

12 Amended by An­nex 2 No II 2 of the Gambling Or­din­ance of 7 Nov. 2018, in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 5155).

Art. 1113  

13 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Section 2 Public Authorities

Art. 12 Taxable person  

(Art. 12 para. 1 VAT Act)

1 The sub-di­vi­sion of a pub­lic au­thor­ity in­to agen­cies fol­lows the clas­si­fic­a­tion in the fin­an­cial ac­counts, provided this cor­res­ponds with the or­gan­isa­tion­al and func­tion­al struc­ture.

2 Oth­er pub­lic law in­sti­tu­tions covered by Art­icle 12 para­graph 1 VAT Act are:

a.
Swiss and for­eign pub­lic cor­por­a­tions such as spe­cial-pur­pose as­so­ci­ations;
b.
pub­lic law in­sti­tu­tions with their own leg­al per­son­al­ity;
c.
pub­lic law found­a­tions with their own leg­al per­son­al­ity;
d.
simple part­ner­ships of pub­lic au­thor­it­ies.

3 For pur­poses of cross-bor­der col­lab­or­a­tion, for­eign pub­lic au­thor­it­ies may also be in­cluded in spe­cial-pur­pose as­so­ci­ations and simple part­ner­ships.

4 An in­sti­tu­tion with­in the mean­ing of para­graph 2 is a tax­able per­son as a whole.

Art. 1314  

14 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 14 Business supplies of a public authority  

(Art. 12 para. 4 VAT Act)

The fol­low­ing sup­plies in par­tic­u­lar of pub­lic au­thor­it­ies are of a busi­ness char­ac­ter and there­fore tax­able:15

1.
ser­vices in the field of ra­dio and tele­vi­sion, tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion ser­vices and elec­tron­ic ser­vices;
2.
sup­plies of wa­ter, gas, elec­tri­city, thermal en­ergy, eth­an­ol, de­na­tur­ing agents and sim­il­ar goods;
3.
trans­port of goods and people;
4.
ser­vices in har­bours and air­ports;
5.
sup­plies of new fin­ished goods for sale;
6.16
...
7.
or­gan­ising fairs and ex­hib­i­tions with a com­mer­cial char­ac­ter;
8.
op­er­at­ing sports fa­cil­it­ies, such as pub­lic baths and skat­ing rinks;
9.
ware­hous­ing;
10.
activ­it­ies of com­mer­cial ad­vert­ising of­fices;
11.
activ­it­ies of travel agents;
12.
sup­plies by fact­ory canteens, staff res­taur­ants, sales of­fices and sim­il­ar es­tab­lish­ments;
13.
activ­it­ies of pub­lic not­ar­ies;
14.
activ­it­ies of sur­vey­ing of­fices;
15.
activ­it­ies in the field of waste dis­pos­al;
16.
activ­it­ies fin­anced by pre­paid dis­pos­al fees based on Art­icle 32abis of the En­vir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion Act of 7 Oc­to­ber 198317 (EPA);
17.
activ­it­ies in the course of the con­struc­tion of traffic in­fra­struc­ture;
18.
ex­haust gas in­spec­tions;
19.
ad­vert­ising ser­vices.

15 Amended by No I of the O of 18 June 2010, in force since 1 Jan. 2010 (AS 2010 2833).

16 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

17 SR 814.01

Section 3 Group Taxation

Art. 15 Common management  

(Art. 13 VAT Act)

There is com­mon man­age­ment if the be­ha­viour of a leg­al en­tity is con­trolled by the ma­jor­ity of the votes, by con­tract or by oth­er means.

Art. 16 Group members  

(Art. 13 VAT Act)

1 Un­in­cor­por­ated en­tit­ies without leg­al ca­pa­city are equi­val­ent to leg­al en­tit­ies for the pur­pose of Art­icle 13 VAT Act.

2 In­sur­ance agents may be mem­bers of a group.

3 ...18

18 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 12 Nov. 2014, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2015 (AS 2014 3847).

Art. 17 Formation of a group  

(Art. 13 VAT Act)

1 The mem­bers of the VAT group may be freely de­term­ined from among those en­titled to par­ti­cip­ate in the group tax­a­tion.

2 The form­a­tion of sev­er­al sub-groups is per­miss­ible.

Art. 18 Authorisation of group taxation  

(Art. 13 and 67 para. 2 VAT Act)

1 On ap­plic­a­tion, the FTA shall au­thor­ise group tax­a­tion, provided the rel­ev­ant con­di­tions are met.

2 The ap­plic­a­tion must en­close writ­ten de­clar­a­tions by each group mem­ber, in which they de­clare their con­sent to group tax­a­tion and its ef­fects and to joint rep­res­ent­a­tion by the group mem­ber or per­son des­ig­nated in the ap­plic­a­tion.

3 The ap­plic­a­tion must be sub­mit­ted by the group rep­res­ent­at­ive. The group rep­res­ent­at­ive may be:

a.
a mem­ber of the VAT group dom­i­ciled on Swiss ter­rit­ory; or
b.
a per­son who is not a mem­ber but who has its dom­i­cile or a place of busi­ness on Swiss ter­rit­ory.
Art. 19 Changes in the group representation  

(Art. 13 VAT Act)

1 Resig­na­tion as rep­res­ent­at­ive of a VAT group is pos­sible only at the end of a tax peri­od. No­tice of the resig­na­tion must be giv­en to the FTA in writ­ing at least one month in ad­vance.

2 If the former group rep­res­ent­at­ive resigns and writ­ten no­tice of a new group rep­res­ent­at­ive is not giv­en to the FTA one month be­fore the end of the tax peri­od, the FTA may after pri­or warn­ing des­ig­nate one of the group mem­bers as the group rep­res­ent­at­ive.

3 The group mem­bers may jointly with­draw the man­date from the group rep­res­ent­at­ive provided that at the same time they des­ig­nate a new group rep­res­ent­at­ive. Para­graph 1 ap­plies by ana­logy.

Art. 20 Changes in the membership of the group  

(Art. 13 VAT Act)

1 If a mem­ber no longer ful­fils the re­quire­ments for par­ti­cip­at­ing in the group tax­a­tion, the group rep­res­ent­at­ive must no­ti­fy the FTA in writ­ing.

2 On ap­plic­a­tion, the leg­al en­tity may join an ex­ist­ing group or a mem­ber can leave a group. The FTA au­thor­ises the entry or with­draw­al for the be­gin­ning of the fol­low­ing or the end of the cur­rent tax peri­od.

3 If a leg­al en­tity, for whom the re­quire­ments for par­ti­cip­a­tion in the group tax­a­tion were not formerly giv­en, now ful­fils the re­quire­ments, ad­mis­sion to an ex­ist­ing VAT group can also be ap­plied for dur­ing the cur­rent tax peri­od, provided the rel­ev­ant ap­plic­a­tion is sub­mit­ted to the FTA in writ­ing with­in 30 days of pub­lic­a­tion of the ap­plic­able change in the Com­mer­cial Re­gister or after the re­quire­ments are met.

Art. 21 Administrative and accounting requirements  

(Art. 13 VAT Act)

1 The mem­bers must close their ac­counts on the same bal­ance sheet date; this does not ap­ply to hold­ing com­pan­ies if for ac­count­ing reas­ons they have a dif­fer­ent bal­ance sheet date.

2 Every mem­ber must pre­pare an in­tern­al tax re­turn, which must be con­sol­id­ated in the VAT group’s re­turn.

Art. 22 Joint and several liability for group taxation  

(Art. 15 para. 1 let. c VAT Act)

1 The joint and sev­er­al li­ab­il­ity of a mem­ber of a VAT group ex­tends to all tax, in­terest and cost claims that arise dur­ing its mem­ber­ship, with the ex­cep­tion of fines.

2 If leg­al en­force­ment has been ini­ti­ated against a group mem­ber, ad­di­tion­al tax has been claimed by an as­sess­ment no­tice from the group rep­res­ent­at­ive or if an audit has been an­nounced, a group mem­ber may not elude joint and sev­er­al li­ab­il­ity by with­draw­ing from the group.

Section 4 Liability on the Assignment of Claims

Art. 23 Amount of the assignment  

(Art. 15 para. 4 VAT Act)

When part of a claim to a con­sid­er­a­tion is as­signed, the VAT is also as­signed in the same pro­por­tion. As­sign­ment of a net claim without VAT is not pos­sible.

Art. 24 Amount of the liability  

(Art. 15 para. 4 VAT Act)

1 Li­ab­il­ity un­der Art­icle 15 para­graph 4 VAT Act is lim­ited to the amount of the VAT amount that has ac­tu­ally been col­lec­ted by the as­sign­ee dur­ing an en­force­ment pro­ced­ure against the tax­able per­son from the time of pledge or from the time bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings are opened.

2 In a pledge or pledge real­isa­tion pro­ced­ure against a tax­able per­son, the FTA must in­form the as­sign­ee im­me­di­ately after re­ceipt of the pledge deed of its li­ab­il­ity.

3 After bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings are opened against a tax­able per­son, the FTA may claim on the li­ab­il­ity of the as­sign­ee ir­re­spect­ive of pri­or no­ti­fic­a­tion.

Art. 25 Release from liability  

(Art. 15 para. 4 VAT Act)

By re­mit­ting to the FTA the VAT also as­signed and col­lec­ted with the claim the as­sign­ee is re­leased in the same amount from the li­ab­il­ity.

Chapter 2 Object of Taxation

Section 1 Supply Relationship

Art. 26 Supplies to closely related persons 19  

(Art. 18 para. 1 VAT Act)

The pro­vi­sion of sup­plies to closely re­lated per­sons con­sti­tutes a sup­ply re­la­tion­ship. As­sess­ment is gov­erned by Art­icle 24 para­graph 2 VAT Act.

19 The cor­rec­tion of 12 Dec. 2017 only con­cerns the French text (AS 2017 7263).

Art. 27 Prepaid disposal fees  

(Art. 18 para. 1 VAT Act)

Private or­gan­isa­tions with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 32abis EPA20 make sup­plies to man­u­fac­tur­ers and im­port­ers through their activ­it­ies. The pre­paid dis­pos­al fees are a con­sid­er­a­tion for these ser­vices.

20 SR 814.01

Art. 28 Cross-border posting of employees within a group of companies  

(Art. 18 VAT Act)

A sup­ply re­la­tion­ship does not ex­ist in the cross-bor­der post­ing of em­ploy­ees with­in a group, if:

a.
a for­eign em­ploy­er em­ploys an em­ploy­ee in a de­ploy­ment op­er­a­tion on Swiss ter­rit­ory be­long­ing to the same group of com­pan­ies or an em­ploy­er em­ploys an em­ploy­ee in a for­eign de­ploy­ment op­er­a­tion be­long­ing to the same group;
b.
the em­ploy­ee works for the de­ploy­ment op­er­a­tion but re­tains the em­ploy­ment con­tract with the post­ing busi­ness; and
c.
the wages, so­cial se­cur­ity con­tri­bu­tions and re­lated ex­penses are charged by the post­ing em­ploy­er to the de­ploy­ment op­er­a­tion without a sur­charge.
Art. 29 Subsidies and other public law contributions  

(Art. 18 para. 2 let. a VAT Act)

Sub­sidies or oth­er pub­lic con­tri­bu­tions are in par­tic­u­lar amounts paid by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies as:

a.
fin­an­cial as­sist­ance with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 3 para­graph 1 of the Sub­sidies Act of 5 Oc­to­ber 199021 (SubA);
b.
com­pens­a­tion with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 3 para­graph 2 let­ter a SubA, provided if a sup­ply re­la­tion­ship ex­ists;
c.
re­search con­tri­bu­tions, provided the pub­lic au­thor­ity does not have an ex­clus­ive right to the res­ults of the re­search;
d.
cash flows com­par­able with let­ters a–c that are paid un­der can­ton­al and com­mun­al law.
Art. 30 Remittance of cash flows that do not constitute considerations  

(Art. 18 para. 2 VAT Act)

1 Cash flow re­mit­tances that do not con­sti­tute con­sid­er­a­tions un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 VAT Act, in par­tic­u­lar with­in edu­ca­tion­al and re­search co­oper­a­tion pro­jects, are not sub­ject to the tax.

2 The in­put tax de­duc­tion un­der Art­icle 33 para­graph 2 VAT Act must be made by the last pay­ment re­cip­i­ent.

Section 2 Plurality of Supplies

Art. 31 Special tools  

(Art. 19 para. 1 VAT Act)

1 Spe­cial tools that a tax­able per­son pur­chases, has made to or­der, or makes him­self spe­cific­ally for the per­form­ance of a man­u­fac­tur­ing con­tract con­sti­tute part of the sup­ply of the goods that they are used to man­u­fac­ture. It is ir­rel­ev­ant wheth­er the spe­cial tools:

a.
are in­voiced to the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply sep­ar­ately or are in­cluded in the price of the products;
b.
are de­livered to the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply or to a third per­son des­ig­nated by the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply, or not after per­form­ance of the man­u­fac­tur­ing con­tract.

2 Spe­cial tools are in par­tic­u­lar print­ing plates, pho­to­lithos and photo set­tings, punch­ing and draw tools, gauges, jigs, press­ing and spray­ing forms, cast­ings, foundry mod­ules, dies and films for prin­ted cir­cuits.

Art. 32 Aggregated units and combinations of supplies 22  

(Art. 19 para. 2 VAT Act)

Art­icle 19 para­graph 2 VAT Act ap­plies by ana­logy when de­term­in­ing wheth­er in the case of com­bin­a­tions of sup­plies the place of sup­ply is loc­ated on Swiss ter­rit­ory or abroad.

22 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 33 Applicability of the import tax assessment for the Swiss tax  

(Art. 19 para. 2 VAT Act)

An im­port tax as­sess­ment un­der Art­icle 112 also ap­plies to the Swiss tax, provided the com­bin­a­tion of sup­plies was not pro­cessed or changed after the im­port as­sess­ment.

Section 3 Supplies exempt from the Tax without Credit

Art. 34 Human medical treatment  

(Art. 21 para. 2 no 3 VAT Act)

1 Hu­man med­ic­al treat­ment is the dia­gnos­is and treat­ment of ill­nesses, in­jur­ies and oth­er dis­orders of the phys­ic­al and men­tal health of hu­mans and activ­it­ies that serve the pre­ven­tion of hu­man ill­nesses and health dis­orders.

2 The fol­low­ing are equi­val­ent to hu­man med­ic­al treat­ment:

a.
spe­cial ma­ter­nity ser­vices, such as check-ups, birth pre­par­a­tion or breast feed­ing ad­vice;
b.
ex­am­in­a­tions, con­sulta­tions and treat­ment re­lated to ar­ti­fi­cial in­sem­in­a­tion, con­tra­cep­tion or abor­tion;
c.
sup­plies of goods and sup­plies of ser­vices by a doc­tor or a dent­ist when destined for a med­ic­al re­port or an ex­pert opin­ion for the as­sess­ment of so­cial se­cur­ity claims.

3 The fol­low­ing in par­tic­u­lar do not con­sti­tute hu­man med­ic­al treat­ment:

a.
ex­am­in­a­tions, con­sulta­tions and treat­ment solely for the pur­poses of en­han­cing well­being or per­form­ance or which are provided merely for aes­thet­ic reas­ons, un­less the ex­am­in­a­tion, ad­vice or treat­ment is provided by a doc­tor or dent­ist who is au­thor­ised to prac­tise his or her pro­fes­sion on Swiss ter­rit­ory;
b.
the ex­am­in­a­tions car­ried out for the pur­pose of writ­ing an ex­pert re­port which are not re­lated to a spe­cif­ic treat­ment of the per­son ex­amined, ex­cept for the cases un­der para­graph 2 let­ter c;
c.
the dis­pens­ing of medi­cines or of med­ic­al ap­pli­ances, un­less they are used by the per­son provid­ing the treat­ment in the course of hu­man med­ic­al treat­ment;
d.
the dis­pens­ing of self-man­u­fac­tured or pur­chased pros­theses and or­tho­paed­ic equip­ment, even if this takes place in the course of hu­man med­ic­al treat­ment; a pros­thes­is is a re­place­ment body part that can be sep­ar­ated from the body without an op­er­a­tion and re­in­ser­ted or at­tached;
e.
ba­sic care ac­tions; these con­sti­tute nurs­ing care ser­vices un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­ber 4 VAT Act.
Art. 35 Requirement for recognition as a provider of human medical treatment  

(Art. 21 para. 2 no 3 VAT Act)

1 A pro­vider pos­sesses a li­cence to prac­tise its pro­fes­sion with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­ber 3 VAT Act, if it:

a.
is in pos­ses­sion of the li­cence to prac­tise its pro­fes­sion in­de­pend­ently re­quired by the can­ton­al law; or
b.
is ac­cred­ited to provide hu­man med­ic­al treat­ment in ac­cord­ance with the can­ton­al law.

2 Mem­bers of hu­man med­ic­al and nurs­ing pro­fes­sions with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­ber 3 VAT Act are in par­tic­u­lar:

a.
doc­tors;
b.
dent­ists;
c.
dent­al tech­ni­cians;
cbis.23
dent­al hy­gien­ists;
d.
psy­cho­ther­ap­ists;
e.
chiro­pract­ors;
f.
physio­ther­ap­ists;
g.
er­go­ther­ap­ists;
h.
na­tur­o­paths, non-med­ic­al prac­ti­tion­ers, nat­ur­al non-med­ic­al prac­ti­tion­ers;
i.
child­birth carers and mid­wives;
j.
nurses;
k.
med­ic­al mas­seurs and mas­seuses;
l.
speech ther­ap­ists;
m.
di­et­ary ad­visers;
n.
pod­o­lo­gists;
o.24
per­sons au­thor­ised to con­duct ana­lyses for Sars-CoV-2 pur­su­ant to the COV­ID-19 Or­din­ance 3 of 19 June 202025, for the con­duct of these ana­lyses;
p.26
Phar­macists for ad­min­is­ter­ing COV­ID-19 vac­cin­a­tions.

23 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 30 Oct. 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 3839).

24 In­ser­ted by No II of the O of 18 Dec. 2020 (Sars-CoV-2 Rap­id Tests) (AS 2020 5801). Amended by No II 1 of the O of 12 March 2021, in force from 28 Jan. 2021 to 31 Dec. 2021 (AS 2021 145).

25 SR 818.101.24

26 In­ser­ted by No II of the O of 27 Jan. 2021, in force from 1 Feb. 2021 to 31 Dec. 2021 (AS 2021 53). The cor­rec­tion of 1 March 2021 relates to the Itali­an text only (AS 2021 122).

Art. 36 Cultural supplies  

(Art. 21 para. 2 nos 14 and 16 VAT Act)

1 ...27

2 Cre­at­ors with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­ber 16 VAT Act are cre­at­ors of works un­der Art­icles 2 and 3 CopA, to the ex­tent they provide cul­tur­al sup­plies of ser­vices and sup­plies of goods.

27 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 3728  

28 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 38 Cooperation between public authorities 29  

(Art. 21 para. 2 Sec. 28 let. b and c VAT Act)

1 In­terests of pub­lic au­thor­it­ies in private or pub­lic com­pan­ies with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­ber 28 let­ter b VAT Act in­clude both dir­ect and in­dir­ect equity in­terests.

2 In­sti­tu­tions and found­a­tions es­tab­lished by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­ber 28 let­ter c VAT Act in­clude in­sti­tu­tions and found­a­tions both dir­ectly and in­dir­ectly es­tab­lished by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies.

3 The tax ex­emp­tion ex­tends to:

a.
sup­plies between private or pub­lic com­pan­ies whose equity in­terests are held ex­clus­ively by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies, and com­pan­ies held ex­clus­ively by such com­pan­ies, wheth­er dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly, or in­sti­tu­tions and found­a­tions dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly es­tab­lished by such com­pan­ies;
b.
sup­plies between in­sti­tu­tions or found­a­tions es­tab­lished ex­clus­ively by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies and com­pan­ies held ex­clus­ively by such in­sti­tu­tions or found­a­tions, wheth­er dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly, or in­sti­tu­tions and found­a­tions dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly es­tab­lished by such in­sti­tu­tions and found­a­tions.

29 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 38a Educational and research institutions 30  

(Art. 21 para. 7 VAT Act)

1 Edu­ca­tion­al and re­search in­sti­tu­tions are:

a.
high­er edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions sup­por­ted by the Con­fed­er­a­tion and can­tons un­der Art­icle 63a of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion31 in ac­cord­ance with a leg­al basis;
b.
non-profit or­gan­isa­tions un­der Art­icle 3 let­ter j VAT Act, and pub­lic au­thor­it­ies un­der Art­icle 12 VAT Act;
c.
pub­lic hos­pit­als, ir­re­spect­ive of their leg­al form.

2 Private sec­tor busi­nesses do not qual­i­fy as edu­ca­tion­al and re­search in­sti­tu­tions.

30 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

31 SR 101

Art. 39 Option for the taxation of supplies exempt from the tax without credit 32  

(Art. 22 VAT Act)

The op­tion for de­clar­a­tion in the tax re­turn must be ex­er­cised in the tax peri­od in which the sales tax debt arose. On ex­piry of the fi­nal­isa­tion dead­line un­der Art­icle 72 para­graph 1 VAT Act, it is no longer pos­sible to ex­er­cise the op­tion or not to con­tin­ue with an ex­er­cised op­tion.

32 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Section 4 Supplies exempt from the Tax with Credit

Art. 4033  

33 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 41 Tax exemption with credit for international air traffic  

(Art. 23 para. 4 VAT Act)

1 Ex­empt from the tax with cred­it are:

a.
trans­port by air where either the place of ar­rival or of de­par­ture lies on Swiss ter­rit­ory;
b.
trans­port by air from one for­eign air­port to an­oth­er for­eign air­port cross­ing Swiss ter­rit­ory.

2 Do­mest­ic sec­tions of in­ter­na­tion­al flights are ex­empt from tax with cred­it if the flight is in­ter­rup­ted on Swiss ter­rit­ory only by a tech­nic­al stop­over or to change to a con­nect­ing flight.

Art. 42 Tax exemption with credit for international rail traffic  

(Art. 23 para. 4 VAT Act)

1 Cross-bor­der trans­port by rail is ex­empt from the tax with cred­it, sub­ject to para­graph 2, provided it is a sec­tion of a jour­ney for which there is an in­ter­na­tion­al tick­et. This in­cludes:

a.
trans­port on sec­tions of a jour­ney where either the de­par­ture or the ar­rival sta­tion lies on Swiss ter­rit­ory;
b.
trans­port on Swiss sec­tions of a jour­ney used in trans­it to link the de­par­ture and the ar­rival sta­tions loc­ated abroad.

2 For the tax ex­emp­tion with cred­it, the por­tion of the tick­et price cov­er­ing the for­eign sec­tion of the jour­ney must be high­er than the VAT not chargeable be­cause of the tax ex­emp­tion with cred­it.

3 No tax ex­emp­tion with cred­it is gran­ted on the sale of flat price tick­ets, in par­tic­u­lar the GA Travel­cards and the Half-Fare Travel­cards that are used in whole or part for tax ex­empt trans­port.

Art. 43 Tax exemption with credit for international bus traffic  

(Art. 23 para. 4 VAT Act)

1 Ex­empt from the tax with cred­it is the trans­port of per­sons by bus or coach on sec­tions of a jour­ney which:

a.
pass pre­dom­in­antly over for­eign ter­rit­ory; or
b.
are used in trans­it to link the places of de­par­ture and of ar­rival loc­ated abroad.

2 Ex­empt from the tax with cred­it is the trans­port of per­sons on purely Swiss sec­tions of a jour­ney solely in or­der to carry a per­son dir­ectly to a trans­port ser­vice un­der para­graph 1, provided it is in­voiced to­geth­er with the trans­port ser­vice un­der para­graph 1.

Art. 44 Tax exempt turnovers with credit in gold coins and fine gold  

(Art. 107 para. 2 VAT Act)

1 Ex­empt from the tax with cred­it are turnovers in:

a.
state min­ted gold coins with cus­toms tar­iff num­bers 7118.9010 and 9705.000034;
b.35
gold for in­vest­ment pur­poses with a min­im­um fine­ness of 995 per mille, in the form of:
1.
cast bars bear­ing a fine­ness mark and the stamp of a re­cog­nised as­say­er-melt­er, or
2.
pressed bars bear­ing a fine­ness mark and the stamp of a re­cog­nised as­say­er-melt­er or a re­spons­ib­il­ity mark re­gistered on Swiss ter­rit­ory;
c.36
gold in the form of gran­ules with a min­im­um fine­ness of 995 per mille, which have been packed and sealed by an ac­cred­ited as­say­er-melt­er;
d.
un­pro­cessed or semi-fin­ished gold that is destined for re­fin­ing or re­cov­ery;
e.
gold in the form of clip­pings and scrap.

2 Al­loys with two or more per cent by weight gold or, if plat­in­um is con­tained therein, with more gold than plat­in­um also con­sti­tute gold with­in the mean­ing of para­graph 1 let­ters d and e.

34 SR 632.10An­nex

35 Amended by No I of the O of 30 Oct. 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 3839).

36 Amended by No I of the O of 30 Oct. 2013, in force since 1 Jan. 2014 (AS 2013 3839).

Chapter 3 Assessment Basis and Tax Rates

Section 1 Assessment Basis

Art. 45 Considerations in foreign currency  

(Art. 24 para. 1 VAT Act)

1 For pur­poses of cal­cu­lat­ing the VAT pay­able, con­sid­er­a­tions paid in for­eign cur­rency must be con­ver­ted in­to na­tion­al cur­rency at the date the tax claim arises.

2 A con­sid­er­a­tion is in for­eign cur­rency if the in­voice or the re­ceipt is is­sued in for­eign cur­rency. If no in­voice or re­ceipt is is­sued, the book entry of the sup­pli­er ap­plies. It is ir­rel­ev­ant wheth­er the pay­ment is in na­tion­al or for­eign cur­rency and in which cur­rency the change is paid.

3 The con­ver­sion is made on the basis of the rate of ex­change pub­lished by the FTA, whereby the tax­able per­son may elect to use the av­er­age monthly rate or the daily ex­change rate.37

3bis Where the FTA does not pub­lish an ex­change rate for a for­eign cur­rency, the daily ex­change rate for the sale of the for­eign cur­rency pub­lished by a Swiss bank ap­plies.38

4 Tax­able per­sons that are mem­bers of a group of com­pan­ies may use the group con­ver­sion rate for their con­ver­sion. This rate must be ap­plied both to sup­plies with­in the group of com­pan­ies and in re­la­tion to third parties.39

5 The pro­ced­ure chosen (monthly av­er­age, daily or group rates) must be re­tained for at least one tax peri­od.

37 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

38 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

39 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 46 Credit card commissions and cheque charges  

(Art. 24 para. 1 VAT Act)

In par­tic­u­lar cred­it card com­mis­sions, cheque charges, WIR re­bates, etc. do not con­sti­tute re­duc­tions of con­sid­er­a­tions.

Art. 47 Supplies to employees  

(Art. 24 VAT Act)

1 On sup­plies to em­ploy­ees for con­sid­er­a­tion, the tax must be cal­cu­lated on the con­sid­er­a­tion ac­tu­ally re­ceived. Art­icle 24 para­graphs 2 and 3 VAT Act is re­served.

2 Sup­plies made by the em­ploy­er to em­ploy­ees which must be de­clared in the salary cer­ti­fic­ate are deemed to be made with con­sid­er­a­tion. The tax must be cal­cu­lated on the amount that is also ap­plic­able for dir­ect taxes.

3 Sup­plies which do not have to be de­clared in the salary cer­ti­fic­ate con­sti­tute sup­plies made without con­sid­er­a­tion and it is as­sumed that a busi­ness reas­on ex­ists.

4 Where lump sums that are per­miss­ible for de­term­in­ing the wage ele­ments ap­plic­able for dir­ect tax pur­poses may also serve to as­sess the VAT, they may also be used for VAT pur­poses.

5 When ap­ply­ing para­graphs 2–4, it is ir­rel­ev­ant wheth­er the per­sons con­cerned are closely re­lated per­sons as stip­u­lated un­der Art­icle 3 let­ter h VAT Act.40

40 The cor­rec­tion of 12 Dec. 2017 only con­cerns the French text (AS 2017 7263).

Art. 48 Cantonal contributions to water, sewage or waste funds  

(Art. 24 para. 6 let. d VAT Act)

1 The FTA shall es­tab­lish for every fund the amount of the de­duc­tion in per cent which ap­plies to the in­di­vidu­al af­fil­i­ated waste dis­pos­al or­gan­isa­tions and wa­ter­works.

2 It shall take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion that:

a.
the fund does not pay out all the con­tri­bu­tions re­ceived; and
b.
the tax­able cus­tom­ers of waste dis­pos­al ser­vices and wa­ter sup­plies have de­duc­ted the tax there­on in­voiced to them in full as in­put tax.

Section 1a Margin Taxation41

41 Inserted by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 48a Works of art, antiques and other collectors’ items  

(Art. 24a para. 4 VAT Act)

1 Works of art means the fol­low­ing phys­ic­al works by cre­at­ors as re­ferred to in Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­ber 16 VAT Act:

a.
pictori­al works per­son­ally cre­ated by artists such as oil paint­ings, wa­ter col­ours, pas­tels, draw­ings, col­lages and the like; ex­emp­ted there­from are plans and draw­ings for ar­chi­tec­tur­al, en­gin­eer­ing, in­dus­tri­al, com­mer­cial, to­po­graph­ic­al or sim­il­ar pur­poses, hand-dec­or­ated man­u­fac­tured art­icles, the­at­ric­al scenery, stu­dio back cloths or the like of painted can­vas;
b.
ori­gin­al en­grav­ings, prints and litho­graphs, be­ing im­pres­sions pro­duced in lim­ited num­bers dir­ectly in black and white or in col­our of one or more plates ex­ecuted en­tirely by hand by the artist, ir­re­spect­ive of the pro­cess or of the ma­ter­i­al em­ployed, but not in­clud­ing any mech­an­ic­al or pho­tomech­an­ic­al pro­cess;
c.
seri­graphs that dis­play the fea­tures of an ori­gin­al in­di­vidu­ally cre­ated artist­ic work, have been pro­duced in lim­ited num­bers and have been ex­ecuted from re­pro­duc­tion forms com­pletely hand-made by the cre­at­or;
d.
ori­gin­al sculp­tures and statu­ary, in any ma­ter­i­al, provided that they are ex­ecuted en­tirely by the artist; sculp­ture casts the pro­duc­tion of which is in lim­ited num­bers and su­per­vised by the artist or his suc­cessors in title;
e.
tapestries and wall tex­tiles made by hand from ori­gin­al designs provided by artists, provided that the pro­duc­tion is in lim­ited num­bers;
f.
in­di­vidu­al pieces of ceram­ics ex­ecuted en­tirely by the artist and signed by him or her;
g.
enamels on cop­per, ex­ecuted en­tirely by hand, pro­duced in lim­ited num­bers and bear­ing the sig­na­ture of the artist or the stu­dio;
h.
pho­to­graphs taken by the artist, prin­ted by him or her or un­der his or her su­per­vi­sion in lim­ited num­bers, signed and numbered;
i.
works of art per­son­ally cre­ated by the artist in lim­ited num­bers that are not men­tioned in let­ters a–h.

2 An­tiques are move­able goods that are more than 100 years old.

3 Col­lect­ors’ items are in par­tic­u­lar also:

a.
post­age stamps, rev­en­ue stamps, post­marks first day cov­ers, postal sta­tion­ery and the like, used, or if un­used not cur­rent and not in­ten­ded to be cur­rent;
b.
zo­olo­gic­al, botan­ic­al, min­er­alo­gic­al or ana­tom­ic­al col­lect­ors’ items and col­lec­tions; col­lect­ors’ items of his­tor­ic, ar­chae­olo­gic­al, pa­lae­on­to­lo­gic­al, eth­no­lo­gic­al or nu­mis­mat­ic in­terest;
c.
mo­tor vehicles first re­gistered on pur­chase more than 30 years pre­vi­ously;
d.
wines and oth­er al­co­hol­ic bever­ages the vin­tage of which is dis­played and which may be in­di­vidu­al­ised by num­ber­ing or by oth­er means;
e.
goods made of pre­cious met­al, clad with pre­cious met­al, gem­stones, pre­cious stones and the like, such as jew­ellery, watches and coins, that have a col­lect­or’s value.
Art. 48b Margin taxation of goods purchased for a total price  

(Art. 24a para. 5 VAT Act)

1 Where the re­seller has pur­chased col­lect­ors’ items for a total price, it must ap­ply the mar­gin tax­a­tion to the sale of all these col­lect­ors’ items.

2 The con­sid­er­a­tion from the re­sale of in­di­vidu­al col­lect­ors’ items pur­chased for a total price must be de­clared in the re­port­ing peri­od in which it was gen­er­ated. As soon as the con­sid­er­a­tions ex­ceed the total price when ad­ded to­geth­er, they be­come tax­able.

3 Where col­lect­ors’ items are pur­chased with oth­er goods for a total price the mar­gin tax­a­tion only ap­plies if the por­tion of the pur­chase price at­trib­ut­able to the col­lect­ors’ items can be es­tim­ated.

Art. 48c Invoicing  

(Art. 24a VAT Act)

Where the tax­able per­son de­tails the tax on the re­sale of col­lect­ors’ items clearly on the in­voice, it must pay the tax and may neither ap­ply mar­gin tax­a­tion nor de­duct the no­tion­al in­put tax.

Art. 48d Records  

(Art. 24a VAT Act)

The tax­able per­son must carry out a check at the time of ac­quis­i­tion and sale in re­la­tion to the col­lect­ors’ items. In the case of goods pur­chased for a total price, sep­ar­ate re­cords must be kept for each over­all pur­chase.

Section 2 Tax Rates

Art. 49 Medication 42  

(Art. 25 para. 2 let. a no 8 VAT Act)

Med­ic­a­tion is defined as:

a.
au­thor­ised ready-to-use medi­cin­al products and pre­mixed veter­in­ary medi­cin­al products in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 9 para­graph 1 of the Thera­peut­ic Products Act of 15 Decem­ber 200043 (TPA) and the re­lated fin­ished Ga­len­ic products;
b.44
ready-to-use medi­cin­al products that do not re­quire au­thor­isa­tion un­der Art­icle 9 para­graphs 2 and 2ter TPA, with the ex­cep­tion of hu­man and an­im­al whole blood;
c. 45
ready-to-use medi­cin­al products that have been tem­por­ar­ily au­thor­ised un­der Art­icle 9a TPA or tem­por­ar­ily li­censed un­der Art­icle 9b TPA;
d.46
non-au­thor­ised ready-to-use medi­cin­al products un­der Art­icles 48 and 49 para­graphs 1–4 of the Medi­cin­al Products Li­cens­ing Or­din­ance of 14 Novem­ber 201847 and Art­icle 7 of the Veter­in­ary Medi­cin­al Products Or­din­ance of 18 Au­gust 200448.

42 Amended by No I of the O of 18 June 2010, in force since 1 Jan. 2010 (AS 2010 2833).

43 SR 812.21

44 Amended by No I of the O of 8 March 2019, in force since 1 April 2019 (AS 2019 911).

45 Amended by No I of the O of 8 March 2019, in force since 1 April 2019 (AS 2019 911).

46 Amended by An­nex 8 No II 1 of the Medi­cin­al Products Li­cens­ing Or­din­ance of 14 Nov. 2018, in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 5029).

47 SR 812.212.1

48 SR 812.212.27

Art. 50 Newspapers and magazines without advertising character  

(Art. 25 para. 2 let. a no. 9 VAT Act)

News­pa­pers and magazines without ad­vert­ising char­ac­ter are prin­ted mat­ter that ful­fils the fol­low­ing con­di­tions:

a.
they ap­pear peri­od­ic­ally, at least twice a year;
b.
they provide up-to-date in­form­a­tion or en­ter­tain­ment;
c.
they al­ways bear the same title;
d.
they are con­sec­ut­ively numbered and con­tain the date and the fre­quency of pub­lic­a­tion;
e.
they are presen­ted as news­pa­pers or magazines;
f.
they are not made up pre­dom­in­antly of space for en­ter­ing text or oth­er ma­ter­i­al.
Art. 50a Electronic newspapers and magazines without advertising character 49  

(Art. 25 para. 2 let. abis VAT Act)

1 Elec­tron­ic news­pa­pers and magazines without ad­vert­ising char­ac­ter are elec­tron­ic products that:

a.
are trans­mit­ted elec­tron­ic­ally or offered on data car­ri­ers;
b.
are pre­dom­in­antly text or im­age-based; and
c.
es­sen­tially ful­fil the same pur­pose as prin­ted news­pa­pers and magazines un­der Art­icle 50.
2 Elec­tron­ic news­pa­pers and magazines without ad­vert­ising char­ac­ter also in­clude au­dio news­pa­pers and magazines whose con­tent largely cor­res­ponds to that of the ori­gin­al work.

49 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 51 Books and other printed matter without advertising character  

(Art. 25 para. 2 let. a no 9 VAT Act)

Prin­ted mat­ter which ful­fils the fol­low­ing con­di­tions con­sti­tutes books and oth­er prin­ted mat­ter without ad­vert­ising char­ac­ter:

a.
they are in the form of books, bro­chures or loose leaf books; loose leaf products are books if they con­sist of a bind­ing cov­er, fit­ted with a screw post, spir­al or ring bind­er and the loose leaf pages to be filed therein con­tain when com­plete at least 16 pages and the title of the work ap­pears on the bind­ing cov­er;
b.
in­clud­ing the jack­et and the cov­er page they con­tain at least 16 pages, with the ex­cep­tion of chil­dren’s books, prin­ted mu­sic and parts of loose leaf works;
c.
the con­tent is re­li­gious, lit­er­ary, artist­ic, en­ter­tain­ing, edu­ca­tion­al, in­struct­ive, in­form­at­ive, tech­nic­al or sci­entif­ic;
d.
they are not de­signed to be writ­ten in or to store pic­tures for col­lec­tion, with the ex­cep­tion of school and in­struc­tion books and cer­tain chil­dren’s books, such as ex­er­cise books with il­lus­tra­tions and sup­ple­ment­ary text and draw­ing and paint­ing books with designs and in­struc­tions.
Art. 51a Electronic books without advertising character 50  

(Art. 25 para. 2 let. abis VAT Act)

1 Elec­tron­ic books without ad­vert­ising char­ac­ter are elec­tron­ic products that:

a.
are trans­mit­ted elec­tron­ic­ally or offered on data car­ri­ers;
b.
are self-con­tained, pre­dom­in­antly text or im­age-based and non-in­ter­act­ive in­di­vidu­al works; and
c.
serve es­sen­tially the same func­tion as prin­ted books in terms of Art­icle 51.
2 Elec­tron­ic books without ad­vert­ising char­ac­ter also in­clude au­diobooks whose con­tent largely cor­res­ponds to that of the ori­gin­al work.

50 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 52 Advertising character 51  

(Art. 25 para. 2 let. a no 9 VAT Act)

1 Prin­ted and elec­tron­ic products have ad­vert­ising char­ac­ter if their con­tent is clearly de­signed to pro­mote the busi­ness activ­ity of the pub­lish­er or of a third party be­hind the pub­lish­er.

2 Third parties be­hind a pub­lish­er are:

a.
per­sons and busi­nesses, on whose be­half the pub­lish­er acts; or
b.
oth­er per­sons closely re­lated to the pub­lish­er with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 3 let­ter h VAT Act.

3 Ad­vert­ising is both dir­ect ad­vert­ising, such as ad­vert­ise­ments, and in­dir­ect ad­vert­ising, such as ad­vertori­als or in­fomer­cials.

51 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 53 Preparation on the premises and food service  

(Art. 25 para. 3 VAT Act)

1 Pre­par­a­tion is the cook­ing, heat­ing, mix­ing, pre­par­a­tion and blend­ing of food52. The mere main­tain­ing of the tem­per­at­ure of food ready for con­sump­tion is not con­sidered pre­par­a­tion.

2 Food ser­vice is in par­tic­u­lar the ar­range­ment of food on plates, the set­ting up of cold or warm buf­fets, the pour­ing of drinks, the lay­ing and clear­ing of tables, the serving of the guests, the man­age­ment or su­per­vi­sion of the serving staff and the op­er­a­tion and pro­vi­sion­ing of self-ser­vice buf­fets.

52 Re­vi­sion of term rel­ev­ant only to Swiss lan­guage ver­sions in ac­cord­ance with An­nex No 1 of the Or­din­ance on Food­stuffs and Util­ity Art­icles of 16 Dec. 2016, in force since 1 May 2017 (AS 2017 283).

Art. 54 Special consumption installations on the premises  

(Art. 25 para. 3 VAT Act)

1 Spe­cial in­stall­a­tions for the con­sump­tion of food on the premises (con­sump­tion in­stall­a­tions) con­sist of tables, bar tables, coun­ters and oth­er eat­ing sur­faces provided for con­sump­tion or sim­il­ar in­stall­a­tions, in par­tic­u­lar in means of trans­port. It is ir­rel­ev­ant:

a.
to whom the in­stall­a­tions be­long;
b.
wheth­er the cus­tom­er ac­tu­ally uses the in­stall­a­tion;
c.
wheth­er the in­stall­a­tions are suf­fi­cient to en­able all cus­tom­ers to con­sume on the premises.

2 The fol­low­ing do not con­sti­tute con­sump­tion in­stall­a­tions:

a.
mere seat­ing ac­com­mod­a­tion for rest­ing pur­poses without as­so­ci­ated tables;
b.
in kiosks or res­taur­ants on camp­ing sites: the tents and cara­vans of the ten­ants.
Art. 55 Food for takeaway or delivery  

(Art. 25 para. 3 VAT Act)

1 De­liv­ery is the sup­ply of food by the tax­able per­son to cus­tom­ers at their homes or to an­oth­er place des­ig­nated by them without fur­ther pre­par­a­tion or ser­vice.

2 Takeaway food is food which the cus­tom­er takes after pur­chase to an­oth­er place and does not con­sume on the premises of the sup­pli­er. The fol­low­ing in par­tic­u­lar char­ac­ter­ise takeaway food:

a.
the will ex­pressed by the cus­tom­er to take the food away;
b.
the hand­ing over of the food in a spe­cial pack­age suit­able for trans­port;
c.
the hand­ing over of food that is not suit­able for im­me­di­ate con­sump­tion.

3 The FTA shall provide for sim­pli­fic­a­tions with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 80 VAT Act for cer­tain sites and events.

Art. 56 Suitable organisational measure  

(Art. 25 para. 3 VAT Act)

A suit­able or­gan­isa­tion­al meas­ure is in par­tic­u­lar the is­sue of re­ceipts that in­dic­ate wheth­er a res­taur­ant sup­ply, a de­liv­ery of food or a sup­ply of goods for takeaway was provided.

Chapter 4 Invoicing and VAT Details

(Art. 26 para. 3 VAT Act)

Art. 57  

Till re­ceipts for amounts up to 400 francs need not con­tain de­tails about the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply. Such re­ceipts do not en­title the re­cip­i­ent to a tax re­fund in the re­fund pro­ced­ure.

Chapter 5 Input Tax Deduction

Section 1 General

Art. 58 Input tax deduction for foreign currency  

(Art. 28 VAT Act)

Art­icle 45 ap­plies by ana­logy to the cal­cu­la­tion of the de­duct­ible in­put taxes.

Art. 59 Proof  

(Art. 28 para. 1it. a VAT Act)

1 The Swiss tax is deemed to be in­voiced if it is re­cog­nis­able to the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply that the sup­pli­er has de­man­ded pay­ment of the VAT from it.

2 The re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply does not have to veri­fy wheth­er the VAT was rightly de­man­ded. If, however, it knows that the per­son that has trans­ferred the tax is not re­gistered as a tax­able per­son, an in­put tax de­duc­tion is not per­mit­ted.

Art. 6053  

53 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 61 Input tax deduction for gold coins and fine gold  

(Art. 107 para. 2 VAT Act)

The tax on sup­plies of goods and on sup­plies of ser­vices which are used for turnovers un­der Art­icle 44 and im­ports un­der Art­icle 113 let. g may be de­duc­ted as in­put tax.

Section 2 Deduction of Notional Input Tax5454

54 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 62 Precious metals and gemstones  

(Art. 28a para. 1 let. a VAT Act)

Pre­cious metals with tar­iff num­bers 7106–711255 and gem­stones with tar­iff num­bers 7102–7105 are not in­di­vidu­al­is­able move­able goods.

55 SR 632.10An­nex

Art. 63 Right to deduct notional input tax  

(Art. 28a para. 1 and 2 VAT Act)

1 Where ex­clus­ively in­di­vidu­al­is­able move­able goods are pur­chased for a total price, no­tion­al in­put tax may be de­duc­ted.56

2 The de­duc­tion of no­tion­al in­put tax is not per­mit­ted if the total price cov­ers any col­lect­ors’ items (Art. 48a) or non-in­di­vidu­al­is­able move­able goods and the share of the pur­chase price at­trib­ut­able to goods re­ferred to in Art­icle 28a VAT Act can­not be es­tim­ated.

3 The de­duc­tion of no­tion­al in­put tax is not per­mit­ted where:

a.
the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure un­der Art­icle 38 VAT Act was ap­plied on the pur­chase of the good;
b.
the tax­able per­son im­por­ted the good;
c.
goods un­der Art­icle 44 para­graph 1 let­ters a and b and para­graph 2 have been pur­chased;
d.
the tax­able per­son knows or should have known that the good was im­por­ted ex­empt from the tax.

4In the case of pay­ments made un­der the claim set­tle­ment, no­tion­al in­put tax may only be de­duc­ted based on the ac­tu­al value of the good at the time that it is taken over.

56 The cor­rec­tion of 30 Jan. 2018 only con­cerns the Itali­an text (AS 2018 521).

Art. 64  

Re­pealed

Section 3 Correction of the Input Tax Deduction

Art. 65 Methods of calculating the correction  

(Art. 30 VAT Act)

The cor­rec­tion of the in­put tax de­duc­tion may be cal­cu­lated:

a.
ac­cord­ing to ef­fect­ive us­age;
b.
us­ing flat rate meth­ods with flat rates laid down by the FTA;
c.
based on own cal­cu­la­tions.
Art. 66 Flat rate methods  

(Art. 30 VAT Act)

The FTA lays down flat rates in par­tic­u­lar for:

a.
busi­nesses of banks;
b.
the busi­ness of in­sur­ance com­pan­ies;
c.
busi­nesses of spe­cially fin­anced agen­cies of pub­lic au­thor­it­ies;
d.
the grant­ing of loans and for in­terest in­come and in­come from trad­ing in se­cur­it­ies;
e.
the man­age­ment of owned im­mov­able prop­erty where tax­a­tion is not op­ted for un­der Art­icle 22 VAT Act;
f.
pub­lic trans­port busi­nesses.
Art. 67 Own calculations  

(Art. 30 VAT Act)

If the tax­able per­son bases the cor­rec­tion of the in­put tax de­duc­tion on its own cal­cu­la­tions, it must give evid­ence in de­tail con­cern­ing the facts un­der­ly­ing the cal­cu­la­tions and carry out a plaus­ib­il­ity test.

Art. 68 Choice of method  

(Art. 30 VAT Act)

1 The tax­able per­son may use one or more meth­ods to cal­cu­late the cor­rec­tion of the in­put tax de­duc­tion, provided the meth­od(s) lead to an ad­equate res­ult.

2 Ad­equate is any use of one or more meth­ods that takes ac­count of the prin­ciple of ef­fi­ciency of im­pos­i­tion, is audit­able eco­nom­ic­ally and al­loc­ates the in­put taxes ac­cord­ing to their use for a par­tic­u­lar activ­ity.

Section 4 Own Use

Art. 69 Principles  

(Art. 31 VAT Act)

1 The in­put tax de­duc­tion must be cor­rec­ted in full on goods and ser­vices not put to use.

2 The in­put tax de­duc­tion must be cor­rec­ted on goods and ser­vices put to use that are still avail­able at the time the re­quire­ments are no longer ful­filled and have a fair value. In the case of sup­ply of ser­vices in the fields of con­sult­ing, ac­count­ing, staff re­cruit­ment, man­age­ment and ad­vert­ising, it is as­sumed they are ex­hausted at the time of their ac­quis­i­tion and are no longer avail­able.

3 In the case of self-man­u­fac­tured goods, for put­ting the in­fra­struc­ture to use, a flat rate sur­charge of 33 per cent must be made on the in­put taxes on ma­ter­i­als and on any third party work on semi-fin­ished goods. Al­tern­at­ively, ef­fect­ive proof of the in­put taxes ap­plic­able to the use of the in­fra­struc­ture may be provided.

4 If sub­sequently the re­quire­ments for the in­put tax de­duc­tion are only par­tially ful­filled, the cor­rec­tion must be made to the ex­tent that the use no longer en­titles the in­put tax de­duc­tion to be made.

Art. 70 Determination of the fair value  

(Art. 31 para. 3 VAT Act)

1 The fair value must be cal­cu­lated on the basis of the ac­quis­i­tion cost, for real es­tate ex­clud­ing the value of the land and of value en­han­cing ex­pendit­ures. Not to be con­sidered are, however, the value main­ten­ance ex­pendit­ures. Value main­ten­ance ex­pendit­ures are those that serve only to main­tain the value of the good and its abil­ity to func­tion, in par­tic­u­lar ser­vice, main­ten­ance, op­er­at­ing and re­pair costs.

2 In de­term­in­ing the fair value of goods and ser­vices put to use, in the first tax peri­od of use the loss in value must be con­sidered for the en­tire tax peri­od. In the last un­com­pleted tax peri­od, on the oth­er hand, no de­pre­ci­ation may be made un­less the change in use oc­curs on the last day of the tax peri­od.

Art. 71 Major immovable property renovations  

(Art. 31 VAT Act)

If the renov­a­tion costs in a con­struc­tion phase ex­ceed in total 5 per cent of the in­sur­ance value of the build­ing pri­or to renov­a­tion, the in­put tax de­duc­tion must be cor­rec­ted on the basis of the total costs, re­gard­less of wheth­er the costs are for value en­han­cing or main­ten­ance ex­pendit­ures.

Section 5 Subsequent Input Tax Deduction

Art. 72 Principles  

(Art. 32 VAT Act)

1 The in­put tax de­duc­tion may be cor­rec­ted in full on goods and ser­vices not put to use.

2 The in­put tax de­duc­tion may be cor­rec­ted on goods and ser­vices put to use which still ex­ist and have a fair value at the time the re­quire­ments for the in­put tax de­duc­tion are ful­filled. For ser­vices in the fields of con­sult­ing, ac­count­ing, staff re­cruit­ment, man­age­ment and ad­vert­ising, it is as­sumed that they are used on ac­quis­i­tion and there­after cease to ex­ist.

3 In the case of self-man­u­fac­tured goods, for put­ting the in­fra­struc­ture to use, a flat rate sur­charge of 33 per cent may be made on the in­put taxes on ma­ter­i­als and on any third party work on semi-fin­ished goods. Al­tern­at­ively, ef­fect­ive proof of in­put taxes ap­plic­able to the use of the in­fra­struc­ture may be provided.

4 If sub­sequently the re­quire­ments for the in­put tax de­duc­tion are only par­tially ful­filled, the cor­rec­tion may be made only to the ex­tent of the use en­titling the in­put tax de­duc­tion to be made.

Art. 73 Determination of the fair value  

(Art. 32 para. 2 VAT Act)

1 The fair value must be cal­cu­lated on the basis of the ac­quis­i­tion cost, for real es­tate ex­clud­ing the value of the land and of value en­han­cing ex­pendit­ures. Not to be con­sidered are, however, the value main­ten­ance ex­pendit­ures. Value main­ten­ance ex­pendit­ures are those that serve only to main­tain the value of the good and its abil­ity to func­tion, in par­tic­u­lar ser­vice, main­ten­ance, op­er­at­ing and re­pair costs.

2 In de­term­in­ing the fair value of goods and ser­vices put to use, in the first tax peri­od of use the loss in value must be con­sidered for the en­tire tax peri­od. In the last un­com­pleted tax peri­od, on the oth­er hand, no de­pre­ci­ation must be made un­less the change in use oc­curs on the last day of the tax peri­od.

Art. 74 Major renovations of immovable property  

(Art. 32 VAT Act)

If the renov­a­tion costs in a con­struc­tion phase ex­ceed in total 5 per cent of the in­sur­ance value of the build­ing pri­or to renov­a­tion, the en­tire in­put tax de­duc­tion may be cor­rec­ted on the basis of the total costs, re­gard­less of wheth­er the costs are for value en­han­cing or main­ten­ance ex­pendit­ures.

Section 6 Reduction of the Input Tax Deduction

(Art. 33 para. 2 VAT Act)

Art. 75  

1 The in­put tax need not be re­duced if the funds un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let­ters a–c VAT Act are at­trib­ut­able to a busi­ness activ­ity for which no in­put tax is in­curred or for which no claim to in­put tax de­duc­tion ex­ists.

2 To the ex­tent the funds un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let­ters a–c VAT Act can be at­trib­uted to a spe­cif­ic busi­ness activ­ity, only the in­put tax on the ex­pendit­ures for this busi­ness activ­ity must be re­duced.

3 If the funds un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let­ters a–c VAT Act are paid to cov­er an op­er­at­ing de­fi­cit, the in­put tax must be re­duced over­all in the pro­por­tion of these funds to the total turnover, ex­clud­ing VAT.

Chapter 6 Calculation and Constitution of the Tax Claim

Section 1 Annual Accounts

(Art. 34 para. 3 VAT Act)

Art. 7657  

57 Comes in­to force at a later date.

Section 2 Net Tax Rate Method

Art. 77 Principles  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

1 The tax­able sup­plies made for con­sid­er­a­tion on Swiss ter­rit­ory must be con­sidered in as­sess­ing wheth­er the con­di­tions un­der Art­icle 37 VAT Act are ful­filled.

2 The net tax rate meth­od may not be chosen by tax­able per­sons who:

a.
may re­port us­ing the flat tax rate meth­od un­der Art­icle 37 para­graph 5 VAT Act;
b.
use the move­ment pro­ced­ure un­der Art­icle 63 VAT Act;
c.
use group tax­a­tion un­der Art­icle 13 VAT Act;
d.
have their place of busi­ness or a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment in the val­ley areas of Sam­naun or Sam­puoir;
e.58
gen­er­ate more than 50 per cent of their turnovers from tax­able sup­plies to an­oth­er tax­able per­son who re­ports us­ing the ef­fect­ive meth­od where the per­sons in­volved are un­der the same man­age­ment;
f.59
make sup­plies on Swiss ter­rit­ory based on Art­icle 7 para­graph 3 VAT Act.

3 Tax­able per­sons who re­port us­ing the net tax rate meth­od may not opt for the tax­a­tion of sup­plies un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­bers 1–24, 27, 29 and 30 VAT Act. If the tax is nev­er­the­less in­voiced, the tax charged must be paid to the FTA with re­ser­va­tion of Art­icle 27 para­graph 2 VAT Act.60

58 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

59 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 15 Aug. 2018, in force since 1 Jan. 2019 (AS 2018 3143).

60 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 78 Submission to the net tax rate method on commencement of tax liability  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

1 Per­sons newly entered in the Re­gister of Tax­able Per­sons (VAT Re­gister) who wish to sub­mit to the net tax rate meth­od must no­ti­fy the FTA in writ­ing with­in 60 days of no­ti­fic­a­tion of their VAT num­ber.

2 The FTA shall ap­prove the use of the net tax rate meth­od if in the first 12 months both the ex­pec­ted turnover and the ex­pec­ted taxes do not ex­ceed the thresholds in Art­icle 37 para­graph 1 VAT Act.

3 If no re­quest is made with­in the peri­od in para­graph 1, the tax­able per­son must re­port for at least three years us­ing the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od be­fore it may sub­mit to the net tax rate meth­od. An earli­er change of the re­port­ing meth­od is pos­sible at the time of any ad­just­ment to the net tax rate that is not due to a change in the rates of tax­a­tion un­der Art­icles 25 and 55 VAT Act.61

4 Para­graphs 1–3 also ap­ply to ret­ro­act­ive entries ana­log­ously.

5 The VAT chargeable on the stock of goods, the op­er­at­ing ma­ter­i­al and the fixed as­sets at the start of tax li­ab­il­ity is taken in­to ac­count in ap­ply­ing the net tax rate meth­od. No sub­sequent in­put tax de­duc­tion may be made.

61 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 79 Change from the effective reporting method to the net tax rate method  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

1 Tax­able per­sons who wish to change from the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od to the net tax rate meth­od must no­ti­fy the FTA in writ­ing at the latest 60 days after the be­gin­ning of the tax peri­od from which the change is to be made. If the no­ti­fic­a­tion is late, the change is ef­fect­ive for the be­gin­ning of the sub­sequent tax peri­od.

2 The FTA shall ap­prove the use of the net tax rate meth­od if in the pri­or tax peri­od neither of the thresholds in Art­icle 37 para­graph 1 VAT Act was ex­ceeded.

3 On chan­ging from the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od to the net tax rate meth­od, no cor­rec­tions or changes shall be made to the stock of goods, the op­er­at­ing ma­ter­i­al and the fixed as­sets. The fore­go­ing does not ap­ply to a cor­rec­tion un­der Art­icle 93 where im­mov­able goods are used after the change to a neg­li­gible ex­tent for an activ­ity en­titling the in­put tax de­duc­tion to be made.62

4 If sim­ul­tan­eously with sub­mis­sion to the net tax rate meth­od the man­ner of re­port­ing un­der Art­icle 39 VAT Act is also changed, the fol­low­ing cor­rec­tions must be made:

a.
if a change is made from agreed to col­lec­ted con­sid­er­a­tions, the FTA shall cred­it the tax­able per­son the tax at the ap­pro­pri­ate stat­utory tax rate on the tax­able sup­plies in­voiced but not yet paid on the date of change (debt­or items) and at the same time charge the in­put tax on the tax­able sup­plies in­voiced to it, but not yet paid (cred­it­or items);
b.
if a change is made from col­lec­ted to agreed con­sid­er­a­tions, the FTA shall charge the tax on the debt­or items ex­ist­ing on the date of change at the ap­pro­pri­ate stat­utory tax rate and at the same time cred­it the in­put tax on the cred­it­or items.

62 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 80 Withdrawal of approval  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

The FTA may ret­ro­act­ively with­draw ap­prov­al to use this re­port­ing meth­od from tax­able per­sons who have been per­mit­ted to use the net tax rate meth­od on the basis of false in­form­a­tion.

Art. 81 Change from the net tax rate method to the effective reporting method  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

1 Tax­able per­sons who wish to change from the net tax rate meth­od to the ef­fect­ive meth­od must no­ti­fy the FTA in writ­ing at the latest 60 days be­fore the be­gin­ning of the tax peri­od from which the change is to be made. If the re­quest is late, the change is ef­fect­ive from the be­gin­ning of the sub­sequent tax peri­od.

2 Per­sons who ex­ceed one or both thresholds laid down in Art­icle 37 para­graph 1 VAT Act in two con­sec­ut­ive tax peri­ods by up to 50 per cent must change to the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od at the be­gin­ning of the fol­low­ing tax peri­od.

3 Per­sons who ex­ceed one or both thresholds laid down in Art­icle 37 para­graph 1 VAT Act by more than 50 per cent must change to the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od at the be­gin­ning of the fol­low­ing tax peri­od. If the thresholds are ex­ceeded in the first 12 months of sub­mis­sion to the net tax rate meth­od, ap­prov­al is with­drawn ret­ro­act­ively.

4 If one or both thresholds are ex­ceeded by more than 50 per cent due to the takeover of all or part of the as­sets un­der the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure, the tax­able per­son may de­cide wheth­er it wishes to change to the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od ret­ro­act­ively to the be­gin­ning of the tax peri­od in which the takeover took place or at the be­gin­ning of the sub­sequent tax peri­od.

5 On change from the net tax rate meth­od to the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od, there are no cor­rec­tions to the stock of goods, the op­er­at­ing ma­ter­i­al and the fixed as­sets. The fore­go­ing does not ap­ply to a sub­sequent in­put tax de­duc­tion un­der Art­icle 32 VAT Act if the stock of goods, the op­er­at­ing ma­ter­i­al and the fixed as­sets are used to a great­er ex­tent after the change for an activ­ity en­titling the in­put tax de­duc­tion to be made.63

6 If at the same time as the change to the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od the man­ner of re­port­ing un­der Art­icle 39 VAT Act is also changed, the fol­low­ing cor­rec­tions must be made:

a.
if a change is made from agreed to col­lec­ted con­sid­er­a­tions, the FTA shall cred­it the tax­able per­son with the tax on the debt­or items ex­ist­ing at the date of change at the ap­proved net tax rates. No cor­rec­tions are made to the cred­it­or items;
b.
if a change is made from col­lec­ted to agreed con­sid­er­a­tions, the FTA shall charge the tax on the debt­or items ex­ist­ing at the date of the change at the ap­proved net tax rates. No cor­rec­tions are made to the cred­it­or items.

63 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 82 End of tax liability  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

1 If a tax­able per­son re­port­ing un­der the net tax rate meth­od ceases its busi­ness activ­it­ies or if, due to fail­ing to reach the turnover threshold in Art­icle 10 para­graph 2 let­ter a VAT Act, it is ex­empt from tax li­ab­il­ity, the turnovers gen­er­ated pri­or to be­ing re­moved from the VAT Re­gister, the work in pro­gress and, if re­port­ing ac­cord­ing to col­lec­ted con­sid­er­a­tions, the debt­or items are also to be re­por­ted at the ap­proved net tax rates.

2 On the date of re­mov­al from the VAT Re­gister, the tax must be re­por­ted on the fair value of im­move­able goods at the stand­ard rate ap­plic­able at that time, provided:64

a.
the good was pur­chased, con­struc­ted or con­ver­ted by the tax­able per­son when it used the ef­fect­ive meth­od and it has claimed the in­put tax de­duc­tion;
b.65
the good was pur­chased by the tax­able per­son un­der the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure from a tax­able per­son re­port­ing us­ing the ef­fect­ive meth­od.

3 In de­term­in­ing the fair value of im­mov­able goods, for every year ex­pired one twen­ti­eth is re­duced on a straight line basis.

64 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

65 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 83 Takeover of assets under the notification procedure  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

1 If, from the date of the takeover, a tax­able per­son re­port­ing un­der the net tax rate meth­od does not use all or part of the as­sets taken over us­ing the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure un­der Art­icle 38 VAT Act or uses such as­sets only to a less­er ex­tent than the seller of a busi­ness en­titled to de­duct in­put tax, the pro­ced­ure is as fol­lows:66

a.
if the seller re­ports un­der the net tax rate meth­od, no cor­rec­tions are made;
b.
if the seller re­ports un­der the ef­fect­ive meth­od, on that part of the as­sets taken over which is used in fu­ture for a busi­ness activ­ity not en­titling him to de­duct the in­put tax, own use with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 31 VAT Act must be re­por­ted tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­a­tion Art­icle 38 para­graph 4 VAT Act.

2 If a tax­able per­son re­port­ing un­der the net tax rate meth­od uses all or part of the as­sets taken over us­ing the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure un­der Art­icle 38 VAT Act to a great­er ex­tent than the seller for a busi­ness activ­ity en­titling him to de­duct the in­put tax, a cor­rec­tion is not per­mit­ted.

66 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 84 Reporting using net tax rates  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

1 Tax­able per­sons must re­port their busi­ness activ­it­ies at the net tax rates ap­proved by the FTA.

2 If a busi­ness activ­ity ceases or a new busi­ness activ­ity is be­gun or if the turnover shares of the busi­ness activ­it­ies change in such a way that a new al­loc­a­tion of the net tax rates be­comes ne­ces­sary, the tax­able per­son must con­tact the FTA.

3 Tax­able per­sons for whom two dif­fer­ent net tax rates have been ap­proved must re­cord the rev­en­ues for each of the net tax rates sep­ar­ately.

Art. 85 Approval of the use of a single net tax rate  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

The tax­able per­son is per­mit­ted to use a single net tax rate un­less a case un­der Art­icle 86 para­graph 1 or Art­icle 89 para­graphs 3 or 5 ap­plies.

Art. 86 Approval of the use of two net tax rates  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

1 The tax­able per­son is per­mit­ted to use two net tax rates if:

a.
it car­ries on two or more busi­ness activ­it­ies for which the net tax rates laid down by the FTA dif­fer; and
b.67
at least two of these busi­ness activ­it­ies each has a share of more than 10 per cent of the total turnover from tax­able sup­plies.

2 The 10 per cent threshold is cal­cu­lated:

a.
for per­sons who be­come newly tax­able and for tax­able per­sons who take up a new busi­ness activ­ity: based on the ex­pec­ted turnovers;
b.
for the oth­er tax­able per­sons: based on the turnover of the two pre­ced­ing tax peri­ods.

3 The turnovers of busi­ness activ­it­ies with the same net tax rate must be ac­cu­mu­lated in in­vest­ig­at­ing wheth­er the 10 per cent threshold is ex­ceeded.

4 In the case of a tax­able per­son who has been per­mit­ted the use of two net tax rates, if only one or more busi­ness activ­it­ies for which the same net tax rate is provided ex­ceed the 10 per cent threshold dur­ing two con­sec­ut­ive tax peri­ods, the ap­prov­al for the use of the second net tax rate lapses at the be­gin­ning of the third tax peri­od.

67 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 87 Level of the approved net tax rates  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

1 If only two of the tax­able per­son’s busi­ness activ­it­ies ex­ceed the 10 per cent threshold, the use of the two net tax rates laid down for these busi­nesses will be ap­proved.

2 If more than two busi­ness activ­it­ies ex­ceed the 10 per cent threshold, use of the fol­low­ing net tax rates is ap­proved:

a.
the highest of the net tax rates that are laid down for the busi­ness activ­it­ies whose share in the total turnover is more than 10 per cent;
b.
a second net tax rate which the tax­able per­son se­lects from those tax rates that are laid down for the oth­er busi­ness activ­it­ies whose share in the total turnover is more than 10 per cent.
Art. 88 Taxation of the individual business activities  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

1 The turnovers from the busi­ness activ­it­ies of a tax­able per­son who has been per­mit­ted the use of two net tax rates are tax­able:

a.
at the high­er ap­proved net tax rate if the net tax rate laid down for the busi­ness activ­ity in ques­tion lies above the lower ap­proved rate;
b.
at the lower ap­proved rate in the oth­er cases.
2 In cases un­der Art­icle 19 para­graph 2 VAT Act, the en­tire con­sid­er­a­tion may be re­por­ted at the ap­proved net rate tax ap­plic­able to the ma­jor­ity of the sup­ply. However, if the sup­plies are all sub­ject to the same tax rate un­der Art­icle 25 VAT Act, the en­tire con­sid­er­a­tion must be re­por­ted at the high­er ap­proved net rate tax un­less the tax­able per­son can show which parts of the con­sid­er­a­tion ap­ply to the in­di­vidu­al sup­plies.68

68 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 89 Special rule for mixed branches of the industry  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

1 Mixed branches of the in­dustry are branches of the in­dustry in which sev­er­al busi­ness activ­it­ies are nor­mally car­ried on which, if con­sidered sep­ar­ately, would be re­por­ted us­ing dif­fer­ent net tax rates.

2 The FTA shall lay down in an or­din­ance:

a.
the net tax rate ap­plic­able to each mixed branch of the in­dustry;
b.
the usu­al main and an­cil­lary busi­ness activ­it­ies in the mixed branch of the in­dustry.

3 Art­icles 86–88 ap­ply to re­port­ing us­ing net tax rates if the share of one or more busi­ness activ­it­ies usu­ally an­cil­lary to a branch of the in­dustry for which un­der the FTA’s or­din­ance the same net tax rate would ap­ply ex­ceed 50 per cent of the turnover of the tax­able main busi­ness and the tax­able busi­ness usu­ally an­cil­lary to an in­dustry.69

4 The 50 per cent threshold is cal­cu­lated:

a.
for per­sons who be­come newly tax­able and for tax­able per­sons, who take up a new busi­ness: based on the ex­pec­ted turnovers;
b.
for the oth­er tax­able per­sons: based on the turnover in the two pre­ced­ing tax peri­ods.

5 If a tax­able per­son who op­er­ates in a mixed branch of the in­dustry also car­ries on busi­ness activ­it­ies that are ali­en to the branch of the in­dustry, re­port­ing us­ing net tax rates for these busi­ness activ­it­ies is gov­erned by Art­icles 86–88.

69 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 90 Special procedures  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

1 The FTA shall make a pro­ced­ure for the ap­prox­im­ate com­pens­a­tion of the in­put taxes in­curred avail­able to tax­able per­sons re­port­ing us­ing the net tax rate meth­od for:

a.
sup­plies of goods abroad, if the goods are self-man­u­fac­tured or pur­chased with VAT be­ing charged;
b.
sup­plies to be­ne­fi­ciar­ies un­der Art­icle 2 of the Host State Act of 22 June 200770 (HSA), provided the place of sup­ply lies on Swiss ter­rit­ory and for sup­plies of goods that the goods are self-man­u­fac­tured or pur­chased with VAT be­ing charged.

2 Tax­able per­sons re­port­ing us­ing the net tax rate meth­od who pur­chase in­di­vidu­al­is­able move­able goods without openly trans­ferred tax may use the pro­ced­ure made avail­able by the FTA to com­pensate the no­tion­al in­put tax. The pro­ced­ure does not ap­ply to used auto­mo­biles with an over­all weight not ex­ceed­ing 3,500 kg or to goods:

a.
that the tax­able per­son has ac­cep­ted un­der the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure from a per­son re­port­ing us­ing the ef­fect­ive meth­od;
b.
that the tax­able per­son knows or should have known were im­por­ted ex­empt from the tax;
c.
that the tax­able per­son ac­quired ex­empt from the tax on Swiss ter­rit­ory; or
d.
that the tax­able per­son ac­cep­ted as part of a claim set­tle­ment, provided the pay­ments made ex­ceed the ac­tu­al value of the good at the time of ac­cept­ance.71

2bis The pro­ced­ure un­der para­graph 2 ap­plies in an ana­log­ous man­ner when col­lect­ors’ items (Art. 48a) are sold.72

3 For busi­nesses and events un­der Art­icle 55 para­graph 3, the FTA provides for a flat rate ar­range­ment for the ap­prox­im­ate di­vi­sion of the turnovers between the two net tax rates.

70 SR 192.12

71 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

72 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 91 Reporting of the acquisition tax  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

Tax­able per­sons re­port­ing us­ing the net tax rate meth­od who ac­quire sup­plies from busi­nesses with their place of busi­ness abroad un­der Art­icles 45–49 VAT Act, must pay the ac­quis­i­tion tax semi-an­nu­ally at the ap­pro­pri­ate stat­utory tax rate.

Art. 92 Own use  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

Own use, with the ex­cep­tion of Art­icle 83 para­graph 1 let­ter b, is taken in­to ac­count in ap­ply­ing the net tax rate meth­od.

Art. 93 Corrections of immovable goods  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

1 If an im­mov­able good is no longer used in the busi­ness activ­it­ies of the tax­able per­son or is used newly for a busi­ness activ­ity ex­emp­ted from the tax without cred­it un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 VAT Act, the tax must be charged on the fair value at the stand­ard rate at that time provided:73

a.
the good was pur­chased, con­struc­ted or con­ver­ted by the tax­able per­son when the per­son used the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od and claimed the in­put tax de­duc­tion;
b.74
the good was pur­chased by the tax­able per­son un­der the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure from a tax­able per­son ap­ply­ing the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od.

2 To de­term­ine the fair value of the im­mov­able goods, for every com­pleted year the value is re­duced by one twen­ti­eth on a straight line basis.

73 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

74 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 94 Supplies to closely related persons and employees  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)75

1 Sup­plies to closely re­lated per­sons are, sub­ject to Art­icle 93, re­por­ted as fol­lows when re­port­ing us­ing net tax rates:

a. and b.76
...
c.77
goods and ser­vices are re­por­ted us­ing the ap­proved net tax rate at a value equal to the con­sid­er­a­tion paid, but at least at the amount that would be agreed between in­de­pend­ent third parties;
d.
if re­port­ing is done us­ing two net tax rates and the sup­ply can­not be al­loc­ated to a busi­ness activ­ity, the high­er rate is used.

2 Us­ing net tax rates for re­port­ing, sup­plies to em­ploy­ees are treated as fol­lows:

a.
goods giv­en and ser­vices sup­plied for con­sid­er­a­tion to em­ploy­ees are re­por­ted at the ap­proved net tax rate;
b.
if re­port­ing is done us­ing two net tax rates and the sup­ply can­not be al­loc­ated to a busi­ness activ­ity, the high­er rate is used.

3 For closely re­lated per­sons who are also em­ploy­ees, para­graph 2 ap­plies.78

4 Sup­plies that must be in­cluded in the salary cer­ti­fic­ate for dir­ect tax pur­poses al­ways con­sti­tute sup­plies for con­sid­er­a­tion. The tax must be cal­cu­lated on the amount that is also ap­plic­able for dir­ect tax pur­poses.79

75 The cor­rec­tion of 12 Dec. 2017 only con­cerns the French text (AS 2017 7263).

76 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

77 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

78 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

79 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 95 Sales of equipment and fixed assets 80  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

Sales of equip­ment and fixed as­sets that are not used ex­clus­ively to provide sup­plies that are ex­empt from the tax without cred­it must be re­por­ted at the ap­proved net tax rate. If re­port­ing is done us­ing two net tax rates and the equip­ment or the fixed as­sets were used for both busi­ness activ­it­ies, the con­sid­er­a­tions must be re­por­ted at the high­er net tax rate.

80 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 96 Invoicing at an excessive tax rate  

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

If a tax­able per­son re­port­ing us­ing net tax rates in­voices a sup­ply at an ex­cess­ive tax rate, the per­son must, in ad­di­tion to the VAT cal­cu­lated at the net tax rate, also pay the dif­fer­ence between the tax cal­cu­lated us­ing the tax rate dis­closed and the tax cal­cu­lated us­ing the tax rate un­der Art­icle 25 VAT Act. The con­sid­er­a­tion is re­garded as in­clud­ing VAT.

Section 3 Flat Tax Rate Method

Art. 97 Principles  

(Art. 37 para. 5 VAT Act)

1 Re­lated in­sti­tu­tions un­der Art­icle 37 para­graph 5 VAT Act are in par­tic­u­lar com­mun­al as­so­ci­ations and oth­er com­bin­a­tions of pub­lic au­thor­it­ies, par­ishes, private schools and board­ing schools, private hos­pit­als, med­ic­al treat­ment centres, re­hab­il­it­a­tion centres, san­at­or­ia, private home care or­gan­isa­tions, old people’s homes, nurs­ing homes, seni­ors res­id­ences, char­it­able busi­nesses, such as dis­abled work­shops, hos­tels and spe­cial schools, op­er­at­ors of sports fa­cil­it­ies and cul­tur­al centres sub­sid­ised by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies, can­ton­al build­ing in­surers, wa­ter co­oper­at­ives, pub­lic trans­port busi­nesses, private law forest cor­por­a­tions sub­sid­ised by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies, or­gan­isers of non-re­cur­ring cul­tur­al and sports events, as­so­ci­ations un­der Art­icles 60–79 of the Civil Code81 (CC) and found­a­tions un­der Art­icles 80–89bis CC.

2 There are no mon­et­ary thresholds for the use of the flat tax rate meth­od.

3 Tax­able per­sons who re­port us­ing the flat tax rate meth­od may not opt for the tax­a­tion of sup­plies un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­bers 1–25, 27 and 29 VAT Act. If the tax is nev­er­the­less in­voiced, the tax charge must be paid to the FTA with re­ser­va­tion of Art­icle 27 para­graph 2 VAT Act.82

4 Autonom­ous agen­cies un­der Art­icle 12 para­graph 1 VAT Act that merge to form a single tax­able en­tity (Art. 12 para. 2 VAT Act) may ap­ply the flat rate tax meth­od.83

81 SR 210

82 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

83 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 98 Submission to the flat tax rate method and change of the reporting method  

(Art. 37 para. 5 VAT Act)

1 Pub­lic au­thor­it­ies and re­lated in­sti­tu­tions un­der Art­icle 97 para­graph 1 which wish to re­port us­ing the flat tax rate meth­od must no­ti­fy the FTA in writ­ing.

2 The flat tax rate meth­od must be re­tained for at least three tax peri­ods. If the tax­able per­son elects for the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od, the per­son may change to the flat tax rate meth­od at the earli­est after ten years. An earli­er change of the re­port­ing meth­od is pos­sible at the time of any ad­just­ment to the flat tax rate that is not due to a change in the rates of tax­a­tion un­der Art­icles 25 and 55 VAT Act.84

3 Changes to the re­port­ing meth­od are pos­sible at the be­gin­ning of a tax peri­od. They must be no­ti­fied to the FTA in writ­ing at the latest 60 days after the be­gin­ning of the tax peri­od from which the change is to be made. If the no­ti­fic­a­tion is late, the change is ef­fect­ive at the be­gin­ning of the sub­sequent tax peri­od.

84 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 99 Flat tax rate  

(Art. 37 para. 5 VAT Act)

1 When us­ing the flat tax rate meth­od, the tax claim is de­term­ined by mul­tiply­ing the total of the con­sid­er­a­tions gen­er­ated in a re­port­ing peri­od, in­clud­ing tax, by the flat tax rate ap­proved by the FTA.

2 The FTA es­tab­lishes the flat tax rates tak­ing ac­count of the in­put tax amounts usu­al in the rel­ev­ant branch of the in­dustry. A busi­ness activ­ity for which no flat tax rate has been es­tab­lished must be re­por­ted at the rate ap­plic­able for the net tax rate meth­od.

3 The tax­able per­son must re­port each of its busi­ness activ­it­ies with the ap­pro­pri­ate flat tax rate. The num­ber of ap­plic­able flat tax rates is not lim­ited.

Art. 99a Reporting the acquisition tax 85  

(Art. 37 para. 5 VAT Act)

Tax­able per­sons re­port­ing us­ing the flat tax rate meth­od who ac­quire sup­plies from busi­nesses with their place of busi­ness abroad in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 45–49 VAT Act must pay the ac­quis­i­tion tax on a quarterly basis at the rel­ev­ant stat­utory tax rate.

85 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 100 Applicability of the rules of the net tax rate method  

(Art. 37 para. 5 VAT Act)

Un­less this Sec­tion provides oth­er­wise, Art­icles 77–96 also ap­ply.

Section 4 Notification Procedure

Art. 101 Part of the assets  

(Art. 38 para. 1 VAT Act)

Every smal­lest unit in a busi­ness that is vi­able by it­self con­sti­tutes a part of the as­sets.

Art. 102 Tax liability of the purchaser  

(Art. 38 para. 1 VAT Act)

The no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure must also be used if the pur­chaser only be­comes li­able for the tax in con­nec­tion with the trans­fer of all or part of the as­sets.

Art. 103 Invoice  

(Art. 38 para. 1 VAT Act)

If the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure is used, this must be stated on the in­voice.

Art. 104 Voluntary use of the notification procedure  

(Art. 38 para. 2 VAT Act)

Provided both parties are li­able for the tax, the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure may be used:

a.
on the trans­fer of im­mov­able prop­erty or parts of im­mov­able prop­erty;
b.
on ap­plic­a­tion of the trans­fer­ring per­son, if there are ma­ter­i­al in­terests.
Art. 105 Degree of use  

(Art. 38 para. 4 VAT Act)

It is as­sumed that the seller has used the as­sets trans­ferred en­tirely for the busi­ness activ­it­ies en­titling the in­put tax de­duc­tion. A dif­fer­ent de­gree of use must be proved by the pur­chaser.

Section 5 Form of Reporting and Assignment of the Tax Claim

Art. 106 Change in the form of reporting under the effective method  

(Art. 39 VAT Act)

1 On chan­ging from re­port­ing un­der the col­lec­ted con­sid­er­a­tions to re­port­ing un­der the agreed con­sid­er­a­tions meth­od, the tax­able per­son must in the re­port­ing peri­od fol­low­ing the change:

a.
re­port the tax on the debt­or items ex­ist­ing at the time of change; and
b.
de­duct the in­put taxes on the cred­it­or items ex­ist­ing at the time of change in con­nec­tion with the busi­ness activ­it­ies en­titling the in­put tax de­duc­tion.

2 On chan­ging from re­port­ing un­der the agreed con­sid­er­a­tions to the col­lec­ted con­sid­er­a­tions meth­od, the tax­able per­son must in the re­port­ing peri­od fol­low­ing the change:

a.
de­duct the debt­or items ex­ist­ing at the time of change from the con­sid­er­a­tions col­lec­ted in this re­port­ing peri­od; and
b.
de­duct the in­put taxes on the cred­it­or items ex­ist­ing at the time of the change from the in­put taxes paid in this re­port­ing peri­od.

3 If sim­ul­tan­eously with the change in the form of re­port­ing the re­port­ing meth­od un­der Art­icles 36 and 37 VAT Act is also changed, Art­icle 79 para­graph 4 or Art­icle 81 para­graph 6 ap­plies.

Art. 107 Change in the form of reporting when reporting under the net tax rate method or the flat rate tax method  

(Art. 39 VAT Act)86

1 On chan­ging from re­port­ing on the basis of the col­lec­ted con­sid­er­a­tions to re­port­ing on the basis of the agreed con­sid­er­a­tions, the tax­able per­son must re­port the claims ex­ist­ing at the time of change at the ap­proved net tax rates or, where ap­plic­able, flat tax rates in the re­port­ing peri­od fol­low­ing the change.87

2 On chan­ging from re­port­ing on the basis of the agreed con­sid­er­a­tions to re­port­ing on the basis of the col­lec­ted con­sid­er­a­tions, the tax­able per­son must de­duct the debt­or items ex­ist­ing at the time of the change from the con­sid­er­a­tions col­lec­ted in this re­port­ing peri­od in the re­port­ing peri­od fol­low­ing the change.

3 If at the same time as chan­ging of the form of re­port­ing the re­port­ing meth­od is also changed, Art­icle 79 para­graph 4 or Art­icle 81 para­graph 6 ap­plies.

86 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

87 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 108 Assignment and pledge of the tax claim  

(Art. 44 para. 2 VAT Act)

On as­sign­ment and pledge of the tax claim, the con­fid­en­ti­al­ity pro­vi­sions un­der Art­icle 74 VAT Act do not ap­ply.

Title 3 Acquisition Tax

Art. 109 und 11088  

88 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 111 Data storage media without market value  

(Art. 45 para. 1 let. b and 52 let. 2 VAT Act)

1 Re­gard­less of the stor­age device or the meth­od of data stor­age, a data stor­age me­di­um without mar­ket value is con­sidered to be any device for stor­ing data, which in the man­ner and nature and con­di­tion in which it is im­por­ted:

a.
can­not be pur­chased against pay­ment of a con­sid­er­a­tion known at the time of im­port; and
b.
can­not be used con­trac­tu­ally against pay­ment of a non-re­cur­ring li­cence fee known at the time of im­port.

2 The data stor­age me­di­um may in par­tic­u­lar carry com­puter pro­grammes and files, their up­dates and up­grades and sound and im­age data.

3 Cru­cial for the as­sess­ment of wheth­er a data stor­age me­di­um is a data stor­age me­di­um without mar­ket value is the me­di­um it­self with the ser­vices in­cluded therein and the re­lated rights not con­sid­er­ing the leg­al trans­ac­tion lead­ing to the im­port.

4 The fol­low­ing goods are in par­tic­u­lar deemed equi­val­ent to data stor­age me­dia without mar­ket value, provided the goods are ac­quired by the cus­tom­er as a res­ult of an in­de­pend­ent leg­al trans­ac­tion:

a.
plans, draw­ings and il­lus­tra­tions, in par­tic­u­lar by ar­chi­tects, en­gin­eers, graph­ic artists and de­sign­ers;
b.
leg­al opin­ions from law­yers, re­ports from ex­perts, trans­la­tions, re­search and test res­ults and res­ults of ana­lyses, valu­ations and sim­il­ar;
c.
cer­ti­fic­ated rights and in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­erty.

Title 4 Import Tax

Chapter 1 Plurality of Supplies and Exemption from the Import Tax

Art. 112 Aggregations and combinations of supplies  

(Art. 52 para. 3 and 19 para. 2 VAT Act)

1 If an im­port as­sess­ment un­der Art­icle 19 para­graph 2 VAT Act is re­ques­ted, a cost cal­cu­la­tion must be sub­mit­ted at the time of cus­toms clear­ance.

2 The cost cal­cu­la­tion must show:

a.
the dir­ect costs of the in­di­vidu­al sup­plies;
b.
the total con­sid­er­a­tion.

3 Cost ele­ments that can­not be fully al­loc­ated to the in­di­vidu­al sup­plies, such as over­heads, profit or trans­port costs, must be al­loc­ated to the in­di­vidu­al sup­plies by value.

4 The Fed­er­al Cus­toms Ad­min­is­tra­tion (FCA) may from case to case de­mand fur­ther doc­u­ment­a­tion in or­der to re­view the cal­cu­la­tion.

Art. 113 Exemption from import tax  

(Art. 53 para. 2 and 107 para. 2 VAT Act)

Ex­empt from the im­port tax are:

a.
goods for heads of state and for dip­lo­mat­ic, con­su­lar and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions and their mem­bers which are duty free un­der Art­icle 6 of the Cus­toms Or­din­ance dated 1 Novem­ber 200689 (CustO);
b.
coffins, urns and re­lated dec­or­a­tion that are duty free un­der Art­icle 7 CustO;
c.
prizes, memen­tos and gifts that are duty free un­der Art­icle 8 CustO;
d.
res­taur­ant car in­vent­or­ies that are tax free un­der Art­icle 10 CustO;
e.
in­vent­or­ies, spare parts and equip­ment on ships that are duty free un­der Art­icle 11 CustO;
f.
in­vent­or­ies, spare parts and equip­ment on air­craft that are duty free un­der Art­icle 12 CustO;
g.
gold coins and fine gold un­der Art­icle 44.

Chapter 2 Establishment of and Security for the Import Tax Debt

Art. 114 Security for payment of the tax over the FCA’s centralised settlement procedure  

(Art. 56 para. 3 VAT Act)

If the tax is paid via the cent­ral­ised set­tle­ment pro­ced­ure (CSP), the FCA may re­quire a lump-sum se­cur­ity based on its risk as­sess­ment. It is cal­cu­lated as fol­lows:

a.
at least 20 per cent of the tax ac­crued with­in a peri­od of 60 days, provided the im­port­er is re­gistered with the FTA as a tax­able per­son and the con­di­tions of the CSP are ob­served;
b.
100 per cent of the tax ac­crued with­in a peri­od of 60 days if the im­port­er is not re­gistered with the FTA as a tax­able per­son or the con­di­tions of the CSP are not ob­served.
Art. 115 Amount of the security for a conditional tax claim and for payment reliefs  

(Art. 56 para. 3 VAT Act)

1 The amount of the se­cur­ity for con­di­tion­al tax claims or in cases, in which pay­ment re­liefs un­der Art­icle 76 para­graph 1 CustA90 are gran­ted:

100 per cent on stor­age of bulk goods;
abis.91
a max­im­um of 10 per cent for the au­thor­ised eco­nom­ic op­er­at­or (AEO) un­der Art­icle 42a CustA;
b.
at least 25 per cent in oth­er cases.

2 For in­ter­na­tion­al trans­its, the amount of the se­cur­ity is gov­erned by in­ter­na­tion­al treat­ies.

90 SR 631.0

91 In­ser­ted by An­nex No 2 of the O of 18 Nov. 2015, in force since 1 Jan. 2016 (AS 2015 4917)

Art. 116 Subsequent adjustment of the considerations  

(Art. 56 para. 5 VAT Act)

1 The no­ti­fic­a­tion of a sub­sequent ad­just­ment of the con­sid­er­a­tions must con­tain the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.
be­gin­ning and end date of the peri­od for which the con­sid­er­a­tions are sub­sequently ad­jus­ted;
b.
the con­sid­er­a­tions cal­cu­lated in this peri­od;
c.
the total of the ad­just­ments of the con­sid­er­a­tions;
d.
the al­loc­a­tion of the ad­just­ment of the con­sid­er­a­tions to the vari­ous tax rates.

2 Price and value de­tails in for­eign cur­rency ad­duced for the de­term­in­a­tion of the ad­just­ment of the con­sid­er­a­tions must be con­ver­ted in­to Swiss francs at the av­er­age ex­change rate (selling) for the peri­od.

3 The FCA may from case to case de­mand fur­ther doc­u­ment­a­tion in or­der to de­term­ine the im­port tax li­ab­il­ity.

Chapter 3 Transfer of the Tax Payment

Art. 117 Transfer of the import tax payment  

(Art. 63 VAT Act)

1 Per­sons who wish to pay taxes un­der the trans­fer pro­ced­ure re­quire au­thor­isa­tion from the FTA.

2 If doubt ex­ists as to wheth­er the re­quire­ments for the trans­fer of the im­port tax are ful­filled, the FCA shall levy the tax.

3 The pre­scrip­tion of im­port tax li­ab­il­ity that has been trans­ferred is gov­erned by Art­icle 42 VAT Act.

4 The FTA shall reg­u­late ex­e­cu­tion in con­sulta­tion with the FCA.

Art. 118 Conditions for authorisation  

(Art. 63 VAT Act)

1 Au­thor­isa­tion is gran­ted if the tax­able per­son:

a.
re­ports the VAT un­der the ef­fect­ive meth­od;
b.
reg­u­larly im­ports and ex­ports goods as part of its busi­ness activ­it­ies;
c.
keeps a de­tailed im­port, in­vent­ory and ex­port con­trol for these goods;
d.92
in its peri­od­ic tax re­turns with the FTA reg­u­larly re­ports in­put tax sur­pluses on im­ports and ex­ports of goods un­der let­ter b of more than 10,000 francs per year that arise from the pay­ment of im­port tax to the FCA; and
e.
guar­an­tees the cor­rect func­tion­ing of the pro­ced­ure.

2 The grant or ex­ten­sion of the au­thor­isa­tion may be made con­di­tion­al on the pro­vi­sion of se­cur­ity in the amount of the an­ti­cip­ated claims.

92 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 119 Lapse of the conditions for authorisation  

(Art. 63 VAT Act)

If any of the con­di­tions for au­thor­isa­tion un­der Art­icle 118 para­graph 1 let­ters a–d are no longer ful­filled, the tax­able per­son must in­form the FTA in writ­ing without delay.

Art. 120 Withdrawal of the authorisation  

(Art. 63 VAT Act)

Au­thor­isa­tion is with­drawn if the tax­able per­son no longer guar­an­tees the cor­rect func­tion­ing of the pro­ced­ure.

Art. 121 Non-levying of the Swiss tax  

(Art. 63 para. 2 VAT Act)

Art­icles 118–120 ap­ply by ana­logy for au­thor­isa­tion un­der Art­icle 63 para­graph 2 VAT Act.

Title 5 Procedural Law for Domestic and Acquisition Tax

Chapter 1 Rights and Obligations of the Taxable Person

Section 1 Opting not to register as a Taxable Person93

93 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

(Art. 66 para. 1 VAT Act)

Art. 121a  

Busi­nesses that ex­clus­ively provide sup­plies on Swiss ter­rit­ory that are ex­empt from tax without cred­it may opt not to re­gister with the FTA as a tax­able per­son. The fore­go­ing also ap­plies to busi­nesses without a place of busi­ness, dom­i­cile or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment on Swiss ter­rit­ory if they also make sup­plies for which they are ex­empt from tax un­der Art­icle 10 para­graph 2 let­ter b VAT Act.

Section1a Paperless Receipts

(Art. 70 para. 4 VAT Act)94

94 Inserted by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 12295  

For the trans­mis­sion and re­ten­tion of pa­per­less re­ceipts, Art­icles 957–958f of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions96 and the Ac­counts Or­din­ance of 24 April 200297 ap­ply.

95 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

96 SR 220

97 SR 221.431

Art. 123–12598  

98 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Section 2 Reporting

Art. 126 Effective reporting method  

(Art. 71 and 72 VAT Act)

1 When us­ing the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od, the tax­able per­son must for re­port­ing to the FTA re­cord the fol­low­ing fig­ures in a suit­able man­ner:

a.
the total of all con­sid­er­a­tions sub­ject to Swiss tax; this in­cludes in par­tic­u­lar the con­sid­er­a­tions for:
1.
taxed sup­plies, clas­si­fied by tax rates,
2.
sup­plies that are taxed vol­un­tar­ily un­der Art­icle 22 VAT Act (Op­tion),
3.
sup­plies that are ex­empt from the tax un­der Art­icle 23 VAT Act,
4.
sup­plies to be­ne­fi­ciar­ies un­der Art­icle 2 HSA99 that are ex­empt from the VAT un­der Art­icle 143 of this Or­din­ance,
5.
sup­plies for which the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure un­der Art­icle 38 VAT Act was used,
6.
sup­plies that are ex­empt from tax without cred­it un­der Art­icle 21 VAT Act;
b.
abate­ments of the con­sid­er­a­tion when re­port­ing un­der agreed con­sid­er­a­tions, to the ex­tent they are not taken in­to con­sid­er­a­tion in an­oth­er field;
c.
the fol­low­ing, which do not fall with­in the scope of VAT:
1.
con­sid­er­a­tions from sup­plies, whose place of sup­ply lies abroad un­der Art­icles 7 and 8 VAT Act,
2.
flows of funds not qual­i­fy­ing as con­sid­er­a­tions un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let. a–c VAT Act,
3.
oth­er flows of funds not qual­i­fy­ing as con­sid­er­a­tions un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let. d–l VAT Act;
d.
the total of the con­sid­er­a­tions for sup­plies sub­ject to the ac­quis­i­tion tax, clas­si­fied by tax rates;
e.
the total of all de­duct­ible in­put taxes be­fore cor­rec­tions and re­duc­tions un­der let­ter f, clas­si­fied in­to:
1.
in­put tax on cost of ma­ter­i­als and ser­vices,
2.
in­put tax on in­vest­ments and oth­er op­er­at­ing costs,
3.
de-tax­a­tion;
f.
the amounts by which the in­put tax de­duc­tion must be cor­rec­ted or re­duced as a res­ult of:
1.
mixed use un­der Art­icle 30 VAT Act,
2.
own use un­der Art­icle 31 VAT Act,
3.
re­ceipt of flows of funds that do not con­sti­tute con­sid­er­a­tions un­der Art­icle 33 para­graph 2 VAT Act;
g.
the total of the im­port tax re­por­ted un­der the trans­fer pro­ced­ure.

2 The FTA may con­sol­id­ate sev­er­al fig­ures un­der para­graph 1 in­to one field of the re­port­ing form or re­frain from re­quir­ing them in the peri­od­ic re­port­ing.

Art. 127 Reporting under the net tax rate or the flat tax rate method  

(Art. 71 and 72 VAT Act)

1 When us­ing the net tax rate or flat tax rate meth­od, the tax­able per­son must re­cord the fol­low­ing fig­ures in a suit­able man­ner for re­port­ing to the FTA:

a.
the total of all con­sid­er­a­tions sub­ject to Swiss tax; this in­cludes in par­tic­u­lar the con­sid­er­a­tions for:
1.
taxed sup­plies, clas­si­fied by net tax rates or flat tax rates,
2.
sup­plies that are ex­empt from the tax un­der Art­icle 23 VAT Act,
3.
sup­plies to be­ne­fi­ciar­ies un­der Art­icle 2 HSA100 that are ex­empt from VAT un­der Art­icle 143 of this Or­din­ance,
4.
sup­plies for which the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure un­der Art­icle 38 VAT Act was used,
5.
sup­plies that are ex­empt from the tax without cred­it un­der Art­icle 21 VAT Act;
b.
abate­ments of the con­sid­er­a­tion when re­port­ing un­der agreed con­sid­er­a­tions, to the ex­tent they are not taken in­to con­sid­er­a­tion in an­oth­er field;
c.
the fol­low­ing, which do not fall with­in the scope of VAT:
1.
con­sid­er­a­tions from sup­plies, whose place of sup­ply lies abroad un­der Art­icles 7 and 8 VAT Act,
2.
flows of funds not qual­i­fy­ing as con­sid­er­a­tions un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let­ters a–c VAT Act,
3.
oth­er flows of funds not qual­i­fy­ing as con­sid­er­a­tions un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let­ters d–l VAT Act;
d.
the total of the con­sid­er­a­tions for sup­plies sub­ject to the ac­quis­i­tion tax clas­si­fied by tax rates;
e.
tax com­pens­a­tions arising from the use of a spe­cial pro­ced­ure made avail­able by the FTA un­der Art­icle 90 para­graphs 1 and 2;
f.
the fair value of the im­mov­able goods un­der Art­icle 93 that are no longer used for busi­ness pur­poses or are newly used for a busi­ness activ­ity ex­empt from the tax without cred­it un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 VAT Act.

2 The FTA may con­sol­id­ate sev­er­al fig­ures un­der para­graph 1 un­der one field of the re­port­ing form or re­frain from re­quir­ing them in the peri­od­ic re­port­ing.

Art. 128 Additional documentation  

(Art. 71 and 72 VAT Act)

1 The FTA may re­quire the tax­able per­son to sub­mit, in par­tic­u­lar, the fol­low­ing doc­u­ment­a­tion:

a.
a sum­mary of the de­tails men­tioned in Art­icle 126 or 127 for the en­tire tax peri­od (de­clar­a­tion for the tax peri­od);
b.
the duly signed an­nu­al ac­counts or, if the tax­able per­son is not re­quired to keep books of ac­count, a sched­ule of the re­ceipts and ex­pendit­ures as well as of the as­sets of the busi­ness at the be­gin­ning and end of the tax peri­od;
c.
the audit re­port, if one must be is­sued for the tax­able per­son;
d.
a turnover re­con­cili­ation un­der para­graph 2;
e.
for tax­able per­sons who re­port us­ing the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od, an in­put tax re­con­cili­ation un­der para­graph 3;
f.
for tax­able per­sons who re­port us­ing the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od, a sched­ule show­ing the cal­cu­la­tion of the in­put tax cor­rec­tions and re­duc­tions un­der­taken, from which the in­put tax cor­rec­tions un­der Art­icle 30 VAT Act, the own use cases un­der Art­icle 31 VAT Act and the in­put tax re­duc­tions un­der Art­icle 33 para­graph 2 VAT Act is ap­par­ent.

2 From the turnover re­con­cili­ation it must be ap­par­ent how the de­clar­a­tion for the tax peri­od, tak­ing ac­count of the dif­fer­ent tax rates or the net tax rates and flat tax rates can be re­con­ciled with the an­nu­al ac­counts. To be con­sidered in par­tic­u­lar are:

a.
the op­er­at­ing turnover re­por­ted in the ac­counts;
b.
the rev­en­ues booked on ex­pense ac­counts (ex­pense re­duc­tions);
c.
the charges with­in a group of com­pan­ies that are not in­cluded in the op­er­at­ing turnover;
d.
the sales of equip­ment;
e.
the ad­vance pay­ments;
f.
the oth­er re­ceipts that are not in­cluded in the op­er­at­ing turnover;
g.
the pay­ments in kind;
h.
the re­duc­tions in earn­ings;
i.
the bad debts; and
j.
the clos­ing entries, such as peri­od­ic ac­cru­als and de­fer­rals, the pro­vi­sions and in­tern­al re-book­ings that are not turnover rel­ev­ant.

3 From the in­put tax re­con­cili­ation it must be ap­par­ent that the in­put taxes ac­cord­ing to the in­put tax ac­counts or to oth­er re­cords have been re­con­ciled with the in­put taxes de­clared.

4 The de­mand for ad­di­tion­al doc­u­ment­a­tion un­der para­graphs 1–4 does not rep­res­ent a de­mand for com­pre­hens­ive doc­u­ment­a­tion with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 78 para­graph 2 VAT Act.

Art. 129 Correction  

(Art. 72 VAT Act)

Er­rors in past re­turns must be cor­rec­ted sep­ar­ately from the or­din­ary re­turns.

Chapter 2 Obligation of Third Parties to provide Information

(Art. 73 para. 2 let. c VAT Act)

Art. 130  

The ob­lig­a­tion of third parties to provide in­form­a­tion un­der Art­icle 73 para­graph 2 let­ter c VAT Act does not ap­ply to doc­u­ments which

a.
have been en­trus­ted to the per­son ob­liged to provide in­form­a­tion in or­der to make the sup­ply;
b.
the per­son ob­liged to provide in­form­a­tion has pre­pared him­self in or­der to make the sup­ply.

Chapter 3 Rights and Obligations of the Authorities

Section 1 Data Protection 101

101 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 131 Data protection advice 102  

(Art. 76 para. 1 VAT Act)

1 The FTA shall des­ig­nate a per­son re­spons­ible for data pro­tec­tion and data se­cur­ity ad­vice.

2 This per­son shall mon­it­or com­pli­ance with the data pro­tec­tion pro­vi­sions and in par­tic­u­lar en­sure that a reg­u­lar re­view is made of the ac­cur­acy and se­cur­ity of the data.

3 He or she shall also en­sure that reg­u­lar checks are car­ried out re­lat­ing to the ac­cur­acy and com­plete trans­fer of the gathered data onto data car­ri­ers.

102 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 132 Processing of the data  

(Art. 76 para. 2 VAT Act)103

1 Data are pro­cessed for pur­poses of ful­filling the leg­ally pre­scribed tasks ex­clus­ively by em­ploy­ees of the FTA or by qual­i­fied staff un­der the con­trol of the FTA.

2 The FTA may com­pile and store data that it it­self col­lects or con­sol­id­ates or re­ceives from per­sons in­volved in pro­ced­ures, third parties or au­thor­it­ies elec­tron­ic­ally or in an­oth­er form.104

3 ...105

103 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

104 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

105 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 133 Responsibility for the information system 106  

(Art. 76a para. 1 and 76d let. a VAT Act)

The FTA is re­spons­ible for the se­cure op­er­a­tion and the main­ten­ance of the in­form­a­tion sys­tem and for the leg­al­ity of the data pro­cessing.

106 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 134 Data categories 107  

(Art. 76a para. 1 and 3 as well as 76d let. b and c VAT Act)

The data that the FTA may pro­cess un­der Art­icle 76a para­graph 3 VAT Act are as fol­lows:

a.
in­form­a­tion about the iden­tity of per­sons: in par­tic­u­lar names, leg­al form, entry in the com­mer­cial re­gistry, date of birth or date of found­a­tion, ad­dress, place of res­id­ence and of busi­ness, tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion num­bers, email ad­dress, place of ori­gin, bank ac­count, leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive, OASI in­sur­ance num­ber;
b.
in­form­a­tion about eco­nom­ic activ­it­ies: nature of the busi­ness activ­ity, turnovers achieved or an­ti­cip­ated, date of re­gis­tra­tion or de­le­tion, place of the pro­vi­sion of sup­plies and in­form­a­tion about the dis­patch, im­port and ex­port of goods that is re­quired for the im­pos­i­tion of VAT;
c.
in­form­a­tion about in­come and fin­an­cial cir­cum­stances: in par­tic­u­lar in­form­a­tion from busi­ness re­cords, op­er­a­tion­al fig­ures, prop­er­ties, cash, postal and bank ac­counts, se­cur­it­ies and oth­er move­able valu­ables, and un­dis­trib­uted in­her­ited as­sets;
d.
in­form­a­tion about tax af­fairs: tax re­turns;
e.
in­form­a­tion about debts and claim as­sign­ments: peri­od and amount of claim as­sign­ments, amount of tax­able as­signed claims;
f.
in­form­a­tion about debt en­force­ment, bank­ruptcy and at­tach­ment pro­ceed­ings: debt en­force­ment, bank­ruptcy, com­pos­i­tion and at­tach­ment pro­ceed­ings, ju­di­cial and non-ju­di­cial acts in re­la­tion to the ex­er­cise of rights;
g.
in­form­a­tion about com­pli­ance with tax ob­lig­a­tions: com­pli­ance with ob­lig­a­tions to co­oper­ate on tax mat­ters, pay­ment on time of taxes due, ac­count­ing ob­lig­a­tions, find­ings made in the course of audits, and in­form­a­tion re­quired for en­sur­ing the col­lec­tion of the taxes due by tax pay­ers and jointly and sev­er­ally li­able per­sons;
h.
in­form­a­tion about any sus­pi­cion of vi­ol­a­tions, about of­fences, seized goods and evid­ence and about crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings: jus­ti­fied sus­pi­cion of vi­ol­a­tions, seized goods and evid­ence, of­fences and the res­ult­ing sanc­tions and ad­di­tion­al tax claims un­der Art­icle 12 of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1974108 on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law;
i.
in­form­a­tion about ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­ceed­ings: data on ad­min­is­trat­ive and tax-re­lated ju­di­cial pro­ceed­ings re­quired for the is­sue of as­sess­ment no­tices and for the as­sess­ment of rights to tax re­funds and ap­plic­a­tions for tax waivers;
j.
in­form­a­tion about ad­min­is­trat­ive and mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings: re­quest­ing au­thor­ity, date and sub­ject mat­ter of the ap­plic­a­tion, per­sons con­cerned, out­come of the pro­ced­ure and the nature of the meas­ures.

107 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

108 SR 313.0

Art. 135 Statistics 109  

(Art. 76 para. 2 VAT Act)

1 The FTA shall com­pile and main­tain stat­ist­ics to the ex­tent ne­ces­sary for the per­form­ance of its stat­utory tasks.

2 It may provide the fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies and oth­er in­ter­ested per­sons with data for stat­ist­ic­al pur­poses, provided they are an­onymised and per­mit no in­fer­ences as to the per­sons in ques­tion. Art­icle 10 para­graphs 4 and 5 of the Fed­er­al Stat­ist­ics Act of 9 Oc­to­ber 1992110 are re­served.

3 Non-an­onymised data may be used for in­tern­al busi­ness audits and for in­tern­al busi­ness plan­ning.

109 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

110 SR 431.01

Art. 135a Disclosure of data to the Federal Statistical Office 111  

(Art. 76b and 76d let. d VAT Act)

The FTA may make the VAT re­turns avail­able on­line to the Fed­er­al Stat­ist­ic­al Of­fice (FSO) in or­der to carry out stat­ist­ic­al sur­veys provided the tax­able per­son has con­sen­ted to the FSO ob­tain­ing the data from the FTA.

111 In­ser­ted by No I of the O of 8 March 2019, in force since 1 April 2019 (AS 2019 911).

Art. 136 Disclosure of data to the FCA 112  

(Art. 76b para. 2 VAT Act)

The FTA shall make the data un­der Art­icle 134 ac­cess­ible on­line to the per­sons in the FCA re­spons­ible for the im­pos­i­tion and col­lec­tion of value ad­ded tax to the ex­tent that these data are re­quired for the cor­rect and com­plete as­sess­ment of the im­port tax or for the con­duct of crim­in­al or ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­ceed­ings.

112 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 137 Retention period, destruction and archiving of the data 113  

(Art. 76c para. 1 and 76d let. e and f VAT Act)

1 The FTA shall des­troy the data at the latest after ex­piry of the peri­ods laid down in Art­icle 70 para­graphs 2 and 3 VAT Act and in Art­icle 105 VAT Act. Ex­cep­ted are data that are re­peatedly re­quired for the im­pos­i­tion of the VAT.

2 Pri­or to des­troy the data shall be offered to the Fed­er­al Archives in ac­cord­ance with the Archiv­ing Act of 26 June 1998114 for archiv­ing.

113 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

114 SR 152.1

Art. 138 Evaluation of the FTA’s internet service 115  

(Art. 76d VAT Act)

1 For the eval­u­ation of its in­ter­net ser­vice, the FTA may pro­cess data from per­sons who make use of this ser­vice (log files).

2 The data may be pro­cessed only for this ana­lys­is and only as long as ne­ces­sary. After the eval­u­ation they must be des­troyed or an­onymised.

115 Amended by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, in force since 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

Art. 139116  

116 Re­pealed by No I of the O of 18 Oct. 2017, with ef­fect from 1 Jan. 2018 (AS 2017 6307).

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