Federal Act
on Value Added Tax
(Value Added Tax Act, VAT Act)

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

² As Value Ad­ded Tax, it levies:

a.

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

b.³

a tax on the ac­quis­i­tion of sup­plies made on Swiss ter­rit­ory from busi­nesses dom­i­ciled abroad and on the pur­chase of emis­sion al­low­ances and sim­il­ar rights (ac­quis­i­tion tax);

c.

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

³ The tax is levied on the fol­low­ing prin­ciples:

a.

com­pet­it­ive neut­ral­ity;

b.

ef­fi­ciency of pay­ment and im­pos­i­tion;

c.

trans­fer­ab­il­ity.

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

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

In this Act:

a.

Swiss ter­rit­orymeans the ter­rit­ory of the Swiss Con­fed­er­a­tion to­geth­er with the cus­toms en­claves ac­cord­ing to Art­icle 3 para­graph 2 of the Cus­toms Act of 18 March 2005⁴ (CustA).

b.

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

c.

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

d.

Sup­ply of goods means:

1.

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

2.

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

3.

mak­ing a good avail­able for use or ex­ploit­a­tion.

e.

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

1.

in­tan­gible as­sets and rights are made avail­able;

2.

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

f.

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

g.⁵

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

h.⁶

Closely re­lated per­sons means:

1.

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

2.

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

i.⁷

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

1.

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

2.

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

j.

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

k.

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

l.⁸

Di­git­al plat­form means an elec­tron­ic in­ter­face that fa­cil­it­ates in­ter­ac­tion between two or more users on­line with the aim of provid­ing a sup­ply of goods or of ser­vices.

¹ As long as the val­ley areas of Sam­naun and Sam­puoir re­main out­side Swiss cus­toms ter­rit­ory, this Act ap­plies in both val­ley areas only to ser­vices.⁹

² The loss of tax rev­en­ue suffered by the Con­fed­er­a­tion as a res­ult of para­graph 1 must be com­pensated for by the com­munes of Sam­naun and Valsot.¹⁰

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil reg­u­lates the de­tails in con­sulta­tion with the com­munes of Sam­naun and Valsot. In do­ing so it shall take ap­pro­pri­ate ac­count of the sav­ings res­ult­ing from the lower cost of levy­ing the tax.¹¹

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­cide on the ad­just­ment of the Swiss franc amounts men­tioned in Art­icles 31 para­graph 2 let­ter c, 35 para­graph 1^bis let­ter b, 37 para­graph 1, 38 para­graph 1 and 45 para­graph 2 let­ter b, as soon as the Swiss con­sumer price in­dex has in­creased by more than 30 per cent since the most re­cent ad­just­ment.

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

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

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

a.

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

b.

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

² The place of sup­ply of elec­tri­city by cable, gas via the nat­ur­al gas dis­tri­bu­tion net­work or dis­trict heat­ing is deemed to be the place at which the re­cip­i­ents of the sup­ply have their re­gistered of­fice or a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment for which the sup­ply is made, or, in the ab­sence of such a re­gistered of­fice or such a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment, the place where the elec­tri­city, gas or dis­trict heat­ing is ac­tu­ally used or con­sumed.¹³

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

a.

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

b.

makes sup­plies of goods un­der para­graph 1 let­ter b of the pre­ced­ing art­icle that are ex­empt from im­port tax un­der Art­icle 53 para­graph 1 let­ter a be­cause of the in­sig­ni­fic­ant tax amount, and makes a min­im­um turnover of 100 000 francs per year there­from.¹⁴

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

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

a.

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

b.¹⁵

for travel ser­vices and re­lated travel agency ser­vices re­tailed by travel agen­cies: the place where the per­son op­er­at­ing the travel agency has its re­gistered of­fice or a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment, or in the ab­sence of such a re­gistered of­fice or such a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment the dom­i­cile or the place from which the per­son works;

c.¹⁶

for ser­vices in the area of cul­ture, the arts, sport, the sci­ence, schol­ar­ship, en­ter­tain­ment or sim­il­ar ser­vices that are provided dir­ectly to per­sons phys­ic­ally present at the loc­a­tion, in­clud­ing ser­vices of the event or­gan­iser and re­lated ser­vices, if ap­plic­able: the place where these activ­it­ies are ac­tu­ally per­formed;

d.

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

e.

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

f.

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

g.

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

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

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

a.

makes sup­plies on Swiss ter­rit­ory through that busi­ness; or

b.

has their re­gistered of­fice, dom­i­cile or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment on Swiss ter­rit­ory.¹⁷

^1bis A per­son car­ries on a busi­ness if they:

a.

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

b.

act ex­tern­ally un­der their own name.¹⁸

^1ter The pur­chase, hold­ing and sale of in­terests un­der Art­icle 29 para­graphs 2 and 3 qual­i­fies as a busi­ness activ­ity.¹⁹

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

a.

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

b.

car­ries on a busi­ness with re­gistered of­fice, dom­i­cile or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment abroad that ex­clus­ively makes one or more of the fol­low­ing types of sup­plies on Swiss ter­rit­ory ir­re­spect­ive of turnover:²⁰

1.

sup­plies ex­empt from the tax,

1^bis.²¹

sup­plies ex­empt from the tax without cred­it,

2.

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

3.

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

c.²²

as a non-profit-mak­ing sports or cul­tur­al as­so­ci­ation run on a vol­un­tary basis or as a non-profit-mak­ing or­gan­isa­tion, gen­er­ates less than 250,000 Swiss francs turnover with­in one year on Swiss ter­rit­ory and abroad from sup­plies that are not ex­empt from the tax without cred­it un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2;

d.²³

op­er­ates a busi­ness with re­gistered of­fice, dom­i­cile or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment on Swiss ter­rit­ory that provides ser­vices on Swiss ter­rit­ory that are ex­clus­ively ex­empt from the tax without cred­it.²⁴

^2bis The turnover is cal­cu­lated on the basis of the agreed con­sid­er­a­tions without the tax.²⁵

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

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

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

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

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

³ A tax­able per­son that is part of a pub­lic au­thor­ity is ex­empt from tax li­ab­il­ity as long as less than 100,000 francs turnover per year de­rive from tax­able sup­plies to per­sons oth­er than pub­lic au­thor­it­ies. The turnover is meas­ured by the agreed con­sid­er­a­tions without the tax.²⁶

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

¹ Leg­al en­tit­ies with their re­gistered of­fice, dom­i­cile or a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment in Switzer­land which are closely as­so­ci­ated with one an­oth­er un­der the com­mon man­age­ment of a single leg­al en­tity may on ap­plic­a­tion com­bine as a single tax­able per­son (a VAT group). The group may also in­clude leg­al en­tit­ies which do not carry on a busi­ness, and in­di­vidu­als.²⁷

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

¹ Tax li­ab­il­ity com­mences:

a.

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

b.

for all oth­er busi­nesses: on mak­ing a sup­ply for the first time on Swiss ter­rit­ory.²⁸

² Tax li­ab­il­ity ends:

a.

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

1.

on ces­sa­tion of the busi­ness activ­ity,

2.

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

b.

for all oth­er busi­nesses: at the end of the cal­en­dar year in which a sup­ply was made on Swiss ter­rit­ory for the last time.²⁹

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

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

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

¹ Jointly and sev­er­ally li­able with the tax­able per­son are:

a.

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

b.

per­sons who vol­un­tar­ily con­duct or ar­range an auc­tion;

c.³⁰

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

d.

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

e.

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

f.

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

g.³¹

in the cases re­ferred to in Art­icle 93 para­graph 1^bis: the man­aging bod­ies up to the amount of the se­cur­ity re­quired.

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

³ Li­ab­il­ity un­der Art­icle 12 para­graph 3 of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1974³² on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law (ACLA) is re­served.

⁴ If a tax­able per­son as­signs claims from their busi­ness to third parties, the lat­ter are li­able on a sub­si­di­ary basis for the VAT in­cluded in the as­sign­ment if at the date of the as­sign­ment, the tax debt due to the FTA has not yet aris­en and a cer­ti­fic­ate of short­fall is avail­able.³³

^4bis Sellers who sup­ply goods via a di­git­al plat­form shall be li­able on a sub­si­di­ary basis for the tax due on these sup­plies by the per­son deemed to be the sup­pli­er un­der Art­icle 20a.³⁴

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

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

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

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

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

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

a.

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

b.

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

c.

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

d.

dona­tions;

e.

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

f.

di­vidends and oth­er profit shares;

g.

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

h.

de­pos­its in par­tic­u­lar on pack­aging and con­tain­ers;

i.

pay­ments of dam­ages, sat­is­fac­tion and the like;

j.

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

k.

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

l.

charges, con­tri­bu­tions or oth­er pay­ments re­ceived for sov­er­eign activ­it­ies.

³ If a pub­lic au­thor­ity ex­pressly des­ig­nates funds that it pays to the re­cip­i­ent as a sub­sidy or as an­oth­er pub­lic law con­tri­bu­tion, these funds shall be deemed to be a sub­sidy or an­oth­er pub­lic law con­tri­bu­tion with­in the mean­ing of para­graph 2 let­ter a.³⁵

¹ Mu­tu­ally in­de­pend­ent sup­plies are treated sep­ar­ately.

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

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

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

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

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

a.

can prove that they are act­ing as an agent and can clearly identi­fy the per­son rep­res­en­ted; and

b.

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

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

¹ Per­sons who fa­cil­it­ate a sup­ply of goods in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 3 let­ter d num­ber 1 to be made with the aid of a di­git­al plat­form by bring­ing sellers to­geth­er with pur­chasers to con­clude a con­tract on the plat­form shall be deemed to be a sup­pli­er in re­la­tion to the pur­chaser. In this case, there is a sup­ply both between this per­son and the seller and between this per­son and the pur­chaser.

² Per­sons who ful­fil one or more of the fol­low­ing con­di­tions shall not be deemed to be a sup­pli­er:

a.

They are neither dir­ectly nor in­dir­ectly in­volved in the or­der­ing pro­cess.

b.

They do not gen­er­ate turnover dir­ectly re­lated to the busi­ness.

c.

They only carry out the pay­ment pro­cessing in con­nec­tion with the sup­ply.

d.

They only provide space for ad­vert­ise­ments.

e.

They only provide ad­vert­ising ser­vices.

f.

They only re­dir­ect or for­ward pur­chasers to oth­er elec­tron­ic plat­forms.

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

² Ex­empt from the tax without cred­it are:

1.³⁷

the trans­port of let­ters that is in­cluded in the re­served ser­vices un­der Art­icle 18 of the Postal Ser­vices Act of 17 Decem­ber 2010³⁸;

2.³⁹

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

3.

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

3^bis.⁴⁰

co­ordin­ated care ser­vices in con­nec­tion with med­ic­al treat­ment;

4.

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

5.

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

6.

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

7.

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

8.⁴¹

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

9.

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

10.

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

11.

the fol­low­ing sup­plies in the field of edu­ca­tion and train­ing:⁴²

a.⁴³

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

b.

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

c.

ex­am­in­a­tions car­ried out in the area of edu­ca­tion,

d.

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

e.

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

12.⁴⁴

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

13.

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

14.

cul­tur­al ser­vices of the types lis­ted be­low sup­plied dir­ectly to, or, if not sup­plied dir­ectly, im­me­di­ately per­ceiv­able by the pub­lic:⁴⁵

a.

the­at­ric­al, mu­sic­al and cho­reo­graph­ic per­form­ances and film shows,

b.⁴⁶

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

c.

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

d.

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

14^bis.⁴⁷

con­sid­er­a­tions de­man­ded for par­ti­cip­a­tion in cul­tur­al events (e.g. re­gis­tra­tion fees), to­geth­er with the an­cil­lary ser­vices in­cluded;

15.

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

16.⁴⁸

cul­tur­al ser­vices and the sup­ply of cul­tur­al works by their cre­at­ors, such as au­thors, com­posers, film makers, paint­ers, sculptors, and ser­vices sup­plied by pub­lish­ers and col­lect­ing so­ci­et­ies in or­der to cir­cu­late these works; the fore­go­ing also ap­plies to de­riv­at­ive works un­der Art­icle 3 of the Copy­right Act of 9 Oc­to­ber 1992⁴⁹ that are of a cul­tur­al nature;

17.⁵⁰

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

18.⁵¹

in the in­sur­ance in­dustry:

a.

in­sur­ance and re­in­sur­ance sup­plies,

b.

so­cial in­sur­ance sup­plies,

c.

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

–

sup­plies made by so­cial in­sur­ance schemes to each oth­er

–

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

–

sup­plies re­lated to ba­sic and con­tinu­ing pro­fes­sion­al edu­ca­tion and train­ing,

d.

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

19.

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

a.

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

b.

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

c.

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

d.

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

e.

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

f.⁵²

of­fer­ing units in col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes in ac­cord­ance with the Col­lect­ive In­vest­ment Schemes Act of 23 June 2006⁵³ (CISA) and the man­age­ment of col­lect­ive in­vest­ment schemes in ac­cord­ance with CISA by per­sons who man­age such schemes or are re­spons­ible for the safe­keep­ing of the as­sets held in them, fund man­age­ment com­pan­ies, cus­todi­an banks and their agents; agents are re­garded as any nat­ur­al per­sons or leg­al en­tit­ies that may be del­eg­ated tasks by col­lect­ive cap­it­al in­vest­ment schemes in ac­cord­ance with the CISA or the Fin­an­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act of 15 June 2018⁵⁴; the of­fer­ing of units and the man­age­ment of in­vest­ment com­pan­ies with fixed cap­it­al in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 110 CISA is gov­erned by let­ter e,

g.⁵⁵

the of­fer­ing of in­vest­ment groups by in­vest­ment found­a­tions in ac­cord­ance with the Fed­er­al Act of 25 June 1982⁵⁶ on Oc­cu­pa­tion­al Old-Age, Sur­viv­ors' and In­valid­ity Pen­sion Pro­vi­sion (OPA) and the man­age­ment of in­vest­ment groups in ac­cord­ance with the OPA by per­sons who man­age such groups or are re­spons­ible for the safe­keep­ing of the as­sets held in them, the cus­todi­an banks and their agents; agents are deemed to be any nat­ur­al per­sons or leg­al en­tit­ies to whom the in­vest­ment found­a­tions may del­eg­ate tasks;

20.

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

21.

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

a.

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

b.

the rent­ing of camp­ing sites,

c.

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

d.

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

e.

the rent­ing of safe de­pos­it boxes,

f.

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

22.

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

23.⁵⁷

turnovers from gambling, to the ex­tent that the gross gam­ing in­come is sub­ject to the casino tax un­der Art­icle 119 of the Gambling Act of 29 Septem­ber 2017⁵⁸ or the net profit achieved thereby is used in full for char­it­able pur­poses with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 125 of the said Act;

24.

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

25.⁵⁹

…

26.

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

27.

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

28.⁶⁰

sup­plies:

a.

between or­gan­isa­tion­al units with­in the same pub­lic au­thor­ity,

b.

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

c.⁶¹

between in­sti­tu­tions or found­a­tions that have been es­tab­lished or are run ex­clus­ively by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies and these pub­lic au­thor­it­ies and their or­gan­isa­tion­al units;

28^bis.⁶²

the pro­vi­sion of staff by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies to oth­er pub­lic au­thor­it­ies;

29.

the ex­er­cise of ar­bit­ra­tion func­tions;

30.⁶³

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

31.⁶⁴

travel ser­vices re­tailed by travel agents and re­lated travel agency ser­vices.

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

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

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

⁶ Or­gan­isa­tion­al units of a pub­lic au­thor­ity un­der para­graph 2 num­ber 28 are its agen­cies, its private and pub­lic com­pan­ies, provided no oth­er pub­lic au­thor­ity or oth­er third parties par­ti­cip­ate therein, and its in­sti­tu­tions and found­a­tions, provided the pub­lic au­thor­ity foun­ded them without the par­ti­cip­a­tion of oth­er pub­lic au­thor­it­ies or oth­er third parties.⁶⁵

⁷ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall de­term­ine which in­sti­tu­tions are deemed to be edu­ca­tion and re­search in­sti­tu­tions un­der para­graph 2 num­ber 30.⁶⁶

¹ The tax­able per­son may, sub­ject to para­graph 2, tax any sup­ply ex­empt from the tax without cred­it (op­tion), provided the tax is clearly de­tailed or a de­clar­a­tion is made on the tax re­turn.⁶⁷

² The op­tion is ex­cluded for:

a.

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

b.⁶⁸

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

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

² Ex­empt from the tax are:

1.

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

2.⁶⁹

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

3.⁷⁰

the sup­ply of goods that were demon­strably sub­ject to cus­toms con­trol on Swiss ter­rit­ory in con­nec­tion with a trans­it pro­ced­ure (Art. 49 CustA⁷¹), a cus­toms ware­hous­ing pro­ced­ure (Art. 50–57 CustA), a tem­por­ary ad­mis­sion pro­ced­ure (Art. 58 CustA), or in­ward pro­cessing pro­ced­ure (Art. 59 CustA), provided the pro­ced­ure was con­cluded in the prop­er man­ner or with sub­sequent ap­prov­al from the Fed­er­al Of­fice for Cus­toms and Bor­der Se­cur­ity (FO­CBS);

3^bis.⁷²

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

4.

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

5.

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

6.

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

7.⁷³

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

a.

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

b.

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

8.

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

9.

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

10.

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

11.⁷⁴

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

12.⁷⁵

Turnover gen­er­ated by gold and al­loys of gold of the fol­low­ing form:

a.

gov­ern­ment min­ted gold coins un­der tar­iff head­ings 7118.9010, 9705.3100 and 9705.3900⁷⁶,

b.

gold for in­vest­ment pur­poses with a min­im­um stand­ard of fine­ness of 995 thou­sandths, in the form of:

-

cast in­gots bear­ing an in­dic­a­tion of fine­ness and the mark of a re­cog­nised as­say­er-melt­er, or

-

stamped slabs bear­ing an in­dic­a­tion of fine­ness and the hall­mark of a re­cog­nised as­say­er-smelt­er or a re­spons­ib­il­ity mark re­gistered in Switzer­land,

c.

gold in the form of gran­ules with a min­im­um fine­ness of 995 thou­sandths, packed and sealed by a re­cog­nised as­say­er-melt­er,

d.

gold in un­wrought form or in the form of semi-fin­ished products in­ten­ded for re­fin­ing or re­cov­ery, and gold in the form of waste and scrap,

e.

al­loys of gold re­ferred to in let­ter d, provided they con­tain two per cent or more by weight of gold or, if they con­tain plat­in­um, more gold than plat­in­um;

13.⁷⁷

the sup­ply of goods by a seller fa­cil­it­ated by means of a di­git­al plat­form, provided that the per­son who fa­cil­it­ated the sup­ply of goods is deemed to be a sup­pli­er un­der Art­icle 20aand is entered in the re­gister of tax­able per­sons.

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

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

⁵ The Fed­er­al De­part­ment of Fin­ance (FDF) shall reg­u­late the con­di­tions by which do­mest­ic sup­plies of goods to for­eign tour­ists are ex­empt from the tax if be­ing ex­por­ted by these tour­ists and shall spe­cify the evid­ence re­quired. Proof may be provided in elec­tron­ic form.⁷⁸

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

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

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

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

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

^5bis If a per­son is deemed to be a sup­pli­er in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 20a, the con­sid­er­a­tion for the sup­ply which that per­son has fa­cil­it­ated shall be equal to the value which they have com­mu­nic­ated to the pur­chaser of the goods.⁷⁹

⁶ Not in­cluded in the as­sess­ment basis are:

a.

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

b.

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

c.

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

d.

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

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

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

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

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

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

¹ The tax rate is 8.1 per cent (stand­ard rate), sub­ject to para­graphs 2 and 3.⁸¹

² The re­duced tax rate of 2.6 per cent ap­plies to:⁸²

a.

the sup­ply of the fol­low­ing goods:

1.

tap wa­ter,

2.⁸³

food­stuffs un­der the Food­stuffs Act of 20 June 2014⁸⁴, with the ex­cep­tion of al­co­hol­ic bever­ages,

3.

cattle, poultry, fish,

4.

grains,

5.

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

6.

an­im­al feed, sil­age acids, scat­ter­ings for an­im­als,

7.

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

8.

med­ic­a­tion,

9.

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

10.⁸⁵

products for men­stru­al hy­giene;

a^bis.⁸⁶

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

b.

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

c.

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

d.

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

³ For food­stuffs that form part of res­taur­ant sup­plies, the stand­ard rate ap­plies. A res­taur­ant sup­ply is the serving of food­stuffs provided the tax­able per­son pre­pares or serves the food­stuffs on the cus­tom­er’s premises or the tax­able per­son main­tains spe­cial in­stall­a­tions for their con­sump­tion on the spot. If food­stuffs, with the ex­cep­tion of al­co­hol­ic bever­ages, are destined to be taken away or for de­liv­ery, the re­duced tax rate ap­plies provided suit­able or­gan­isa­tion­al meas­ures are taken to dif­fer­en­ti­ate these sup­plies from res­taur­ant sup­plies; if this is not the case, the stand­ard rate ap­plies. Where food­stuffs, with the ex­cep­tion of al­co­hol­ic bever­ages, are offered in vend­ing ma­chines, the re­duced tax rate ap­plies.⁸⁷

⁴ The tax on ac­com­mod­a­tion ser­vices is 3.8 per cent (spe­cial rate).⁸⁸ The spe­cial rate ap­plies un­til 31 Decem­ber 2020 or, in the event that the time lim­it in Art­icle 196 num­ber 14 para­graph 1 of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion is ex­ten­ded, un­til 31 Decem­ber 2027 at the latest. An ac­com­mod­a­tion ser­vice is the pro­vi­sion of ac­com­mod­a­tion, in­clud­ing the serving of break­fast, even if it is in­voiced sep­ar­ately.⁸⁹

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

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

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

a.⁹⁰

the name and the loc­a­tion of the sup­pli­er in the form which the sup­pli­er uses in busi­ness trans­ac­tions, a note that they are re­gistered as a tax­able per­son and the num­ber un­der which they are entered in the Re­gister of Tax­able Per­sons;

b.

the name and loc­a­tion of the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply in the form in which they use in busi­ness trans­ac­tions;

c.

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

d.

the nature, ob­ject and ex­tent of the sup­ply;

e.

the con­sid­er­a­tion for the sup­ply;

f.

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

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

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

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

a.

the in­voice is cor­rec­ted in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 4; or

b.⁹¹

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

³ The leg­al con­sequences of para­graph 2 also ap­ply to cred­it notes, un­less the re­cip­i­ent of the cred­it note con­tests in writ­ing the tax de­tailed without au­thor­isa­tion or the ex­cess­ive tax amount.⁹²

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

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

a.

the do­mest­ic tax in­voiced to them;

b.

the ac­quis­i­tion tax that they have de­clared (Art. 45–49);

c.

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

² If the tax­able per­son has, in the course of a busi­ness activ­ity en­titling them to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion, pro­cured ag­ri­cul­tur­al, forestry or mar­ket garden products, cattle or milk from non-tax­able farm­ers, for­est­ers, garden­ers, cattle deal­ers or milk col­lect­ors, they may de­duct as in­put tax 2.6 per cent of the amount in­voiced.⁹³

³ De­duc­tion of the in­put tax un­der para­graph 1 is per­miss­ible if the tax­able per­son proves that they have paid the in­put tax.⁹⁴

¹ The tax­able per­son may de­duct no­tion­al in­put tax if:

a.

they ac­quire an in­di­vidu­al­is­able move­able good in the course of a busi­ness activ­ity en­titling them to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion; and

b.

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

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

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

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

^1bis An in­put tax de­duc­tion for sup­plies made abroad is per­mit­ted to the same ex­tent as if they had been made on Swiss ter­rit­ory and tax­a­tion had been op­ted for un­der Art­icle 22.⁹⁶

^1ter An in­put tax de­duc­tion is per­mit­ted for travel ser­vices re­tailed by travel agents and the re­lated ser­vices of the travel agents if the ser­vices are provided or used abroad.⁹⁷

² Not­with­stand­ing para­graph 1, there is a right to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion in the course of a busi­ness activ­ity en­titling the tax­able per­son to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion for the pur­chase, hold­ing and sale of in­terests and for re­or­gan­isa­tions as defined by Art­icle 19 or 61 of the Fed­er­al Act of 14 Decem­ber 1990⁹⁸ on Dir­ect Fed­er­al Tax­a­tion (DFTA).

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

⁴ In or­der to as­cer­tain the de­duct­ible in­put tax, hold­ing com­pan­ies may base their cal­cu­la­tion on the busi­ness activ­ity of the busi­nesses held by them that gives rise to the right to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion.⁹⁹

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

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

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

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

a.

they use out­side their busi­ness activ­ity, in par­tic­u­lar for private pur­poses;

b.

they use for a busi­ness activ­ity which does not en­title them to make the in­put tax de­duc­tion un­der Art­icle 29 para­graph 1;

c.

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

d.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

² The tax­able per­son must re­duce their in­put tax de­duc­tion pro­por­tion­ately if they re­ceive money un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let­ters a–c.

¹ The tax is levied by tax peri­od.

² The tax peri­od is the cal­en­dar year.

³ The FTA shall per­mit the tax­able per­son on re­quest to use the busi­ness year as the tax peri­od.¹⁰⁰

¹ With­in the tax peri­od, the tax shall be re­por­ted on a quarterly basis. For re­port­ing us­ing net tax rates (Art. 37 paras. 1 and 2), the tax shall be re­por­ted half-yearly.¹⁰¹

^1bis At the re­quest of the tax­able per­son, the tax shall be re­por­ted:

a.

in the case of a reg­u­lar in­put tax sur­plus: monthly;

b.

in the case of a turnover not ex­ceed­ing 5,005,000 francs from tax­able sup­plies each year: an­nu­ally.¹⁰²

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

¹ The FTA may re­fuse or re­voke au­thor­isa­tion for an­nu­al re­port­ing in the case of tax­able per­sons who fail to com­ply or only par­tially com­ply with their re­port­ing and pay­ment ob­lig­a­tions.

² An­nu­al re­port­ing must be used for at least one full tax peri­od.

³ Any per­son who changes from an­nu­al to monthly, quarterly or half-yearly re­port­ing may change back to an­nu­al re­port­ing after three tax peri­ods at the earli­est.

⁴ Changes must take ef­fect at the be­gin­ning of a tax peri­od.

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

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

¹ If a tax­able per­son does not gen­er­ate more than 5,024,000 francs turnover from tax­able sup­plies an­nu­ally and in the same peri­od does not have to pay more than 108,000 francs in tax, cal­cu­lated at the net tax rate that ap­plies to them, they may re­port un­der the net tax rate meth­od.¹⁰⁴

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

³ The net tax rates take in­to ac­count the in­put tax amounts usu­al in the rel­ev­ant branch of the in­dustry. They are fixed by the FTA after con­sulta­tion with the in­dustry as­so­ci­ation con­cerned.¹⁰⁵

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

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

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

a.¹⁰⁶

re­or­gan­isa­tions in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 19 or 61 DFTA¹⁰⁷;

b.¹⁰⁸

oth­er trans­fers of all of the as­sets or part of the as­sets to an­oth­er tax­able per­son in the con­text of an in­cor­por­a­tion, li­quid­a­tion, re­or­gan­isa­tion, sale of busi­ness or a leg­al trans­ac­tion reg­u­lated in the Mer­gers Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 2003¹⁰⁹.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

a.

they re­ceive, to a sig­ni­fic­ant ex­tent, con­sid­er­a­tions be­fore they make the sup­ply or is­sue an in­voice; or

b.

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

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

a.

on in­voicing;

b.

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

c.

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

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

³ The right to make an in­put tax de­duc­tion based on the ac­quis­i­tion tax is con­sti­tuted at the time of re­port­ing the ac­quis­i­tion tax (Art. 48).¹¹⁰

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

¹ The tax claim is made leg­ally bind­ing by:

a.

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

b.

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

c.

the pre­scrip­tion of the right to es­tab­lish the tax.

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

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

² The rights of the FTA, namely to ob­ject and to take meas­ures to se­cure the tax, are not af­fected by the as­sign­ment or pledge.¹¹¹

¹ The fol­low­ing are sub­ject to the ac­quis­i­tion tax:

a.¹¹²

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

b.

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

c.¹¹³

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

d.¹¹⁴

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

e.¹¹⁵

the trans­fer of emis­sion al­low­ances, cer­ti­fic­ates and at­test­a­tions for emis­sion re­duc­tions, cer­ti­fic­ates of ori­gin for elec­tri­city and sim­il­ar rights, cer­ti­fic­ates and al­low­ances by busi­nesses with re­gistered of­fice, dom­i­cile or a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment abroad or on Swiss ter­rit­ory, which is not ex­empt from do­mest­ic tax without cred­it in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­ber 19 let­ter e.

² The re­cip­i­ent of sup­plies un­der para­graph 1 is li­able to the tax, provided they:¹¹⁶

a.

are li­able to the tax un­der Art­icle 10; or

b.¹¹⁷

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

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

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

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

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

¹ The ac­quis­i­tion tax debt is in­curred:

a.

with the pay­ment of the con­sid­er­a­tion for the sup­ply;

b.

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

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

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

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

¹ Any per­son who is a cus­toms debt­or un­der Art­icle 70 para­graphs 2 and 3 CustA¹¹⁹ is li­able to the tax.

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

a.

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

b.¹²⁰

has the im­port tax debt charged via the FO­CBS’s¹²¹ cent­ral­ised set­tle­ment pro­ced­ure (CSP) ac­count; and

c.

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

³ The FO­CBS may re­quire the per­son who is­sues cus­toms de­clar­a­tions com­mer­cially to provide evid­ence of their au­thor­ity as an agent.¹²²

¹ The tax­able ob­ject is:

a.

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

b.

the re­lease of goods un­der Art­icle 17 para­graph 1^bis CustA¹²³ for free cir­cu­la­tion by per­sons ar­riv­ing by air from abroad.¹²⁴

² If, on the im­port of data stor­age me­dia, no mar­ket value can be es­tab­lished and if the im­port is not ex­empt from tax un­der Art­icle 53, no im­port tax is due there­on and the pro­vi­sions con­cern­ing the ac­quis­i­tion tax (Art. 45–49) ap­ply.¹²⁵

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

¹ Ex­empt from the tax is the im­port of:

a.

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

b.

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

c.

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

d.

goods that are ex­empt from cus­toms du­ties un­der Art­icle 8 para­graph 2 let­ters b–d, g and i–l CustA¹²⁶;

e.

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

f.

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

g.¹²⁷

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

h.

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

i.

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

j.

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

k.

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

l.

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

m.¹²⁸

gold and al­loys of gold in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 23 para­graph 2 item 12.

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

¹ The tax is cal­cu­lated:

a.

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

b.

on the con­sid­er­a­tion for sup­plies of goods un­der work and la­bour con­tracts or for work with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 3 let­ter d num­ber 2 us­ing goods re­leased for free cir­cu­la­tion (Art. 48 CustA¹³⁰) and car­ried out by a per­son not re­gistered on Swiss ter­rit­ory as a tax­able per­son;

c.

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

d.

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

e.

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

f.

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

g.¹³¹

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

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

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

a.

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

b. ¹³²

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

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

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

¹ The tax on the im­port of goods is 8.1 per cent, sub­ject to para­graph 2.

² The tax is 2.6 per cent on the im­port of goods un­der Art­icle 25 para­graph 2 let­ter a and a^bis.

¹ The im­port tax debt is in­curred at the same time as the cus­toms debt (Art. 69 CustA¹³⁴).

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

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

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

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

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

² The li­ab­il­ity for in­terest on late pay­ment be­gins:

a.

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

b.

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

c.

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

d.

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

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

In­terest on late pay­ment is not im­posed if:

a.

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

b.

goods re­leased for free cir­cu­la­tion (Art. 48 CustA¹³⁵) are first pro­vi­sion­ally as­sessed (Art. 39 CustA) and at the time of ac­cept­ance of the cus­toms de­clar­a­tion, the im­port­er was re­gistered on Swiss ter­rit­ory as a tax­able per­son;

c.¹³⁶

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

1.

are re-ex­por­ted, or

2.

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

c^bis.¹³⁷

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

d. ¹³⁸

…

e.

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

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

² Not re­fun­ded are ex­cess taxes im­posed, taxes not due and taxes no longer due as a res­ult of a sub­sequent as­sess­ment of the goods un­der Art­icles 34 and 51 para­graph 3 CustA¹³⁹ or be­cause of their re-ex­port un­der Art­icles 49 para­graph 4, 51 para­graph 3, 58 para­graph 3 and 59 para­graph 4 CustA if the im­port­er is re­gistered on Swiss ter­rit­ory as a tax­able per­son and may de­duct the tax pay­able or paid to the FO­CBS as in­put tax un­der Art­icle 28.

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

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

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

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

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

a.

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

b.

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

² The tax is re­fun­ded only if:

a.

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

b.

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

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

⁴ Ap­plic­a­tions for a re­fund must be sub­mit­ted on de­clar­a­tion for the ex­port pro­ced­ure. Sub­sequent re­fund ap­plic­a­tions may be con­sidered if they are sub­mit­ted in writ­ing to the FO­CBS with­in 60 days of is­sue of the ex­port doc­u­ment with which the goods were as­sessed un­der the ex­port pro­ced­ure (Art. 61 CustA¹⁴⁰).

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

a.

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

b.

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

c.

in re­spect of pro­ced­ures with con­di­tion­al pay­ment li­ab­il­ity (Art. 49, 51, 58 and 59 CustA¹⁴¹): from the 61^st day after due con­clu­sion of the pro­ced­ure.

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

a.

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

b.

the ob­jec­tion to the as­sess­ment de­cision sat­is­fies the re­quire­ments of Art­icle 52 of the Fed­er­al Act of 20 Decem­ber 1968¹⁴² on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Pro­ced­ure (APA);

c.

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

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

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

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

¹ The fol­low­ing tax­able per­sons may de­clare the tax pay­able on the im­port of goods in their peri­od­ic tax re­turn to the FTA in­stead of pay­ing it to the FO­CBS (trans­fer pro­ced­ure):

a.

tax­able im­port­ers re­gistered with the FTA that re­port us­ing the ef­fect­ive meth­od, provided they reg­u­larly im­port and ex­port goods and this reg­u­larly res­ults in sig­ni­fic­ant in­put tax sur­pluses;

b.

sup­pli­ers in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 20a who are re­gistered as tax­able per­sons, provided that no ad­min­is­trat­ive meas­ure in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 79a has been ordered against them.¹⁴³

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

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

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

a.

goods held in the cus­tody of the FO­CBS or made sub­ject to a trans­it pro­ced­ure (Art. 49 CustA¹⁴⁴), a cus­toms ware­hous­ing pro­ced­ure (Art. 50–57 CustA), a tem­por­ary ad­mis­sion pro­ced­ure (Art. 58 CustA) or a pro­ced­ure of in­ward pro­cessing (Art. 59 CustA) are des­troyed in whole or in part by chance, act of God or with of­fi­cial ap­prov­al;

b.

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

c.

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

d.

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

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

³ The peri­od for sub­mis­sion of an ap­plic­a­tion is:

a.

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

b.

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

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

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

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

⁴ All ad­min­is­trat­ive acts must be car­ried out ex­ped­i­tiously.

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

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may stip­u­late the elec­tron­ic con­duct of pro­ced­ures un­der this Act. In do­ing so, it shall reg­u­late the mod­al­it­ies of such con­duct.

² The FTA shall en­sure the au­then­ti­city and in­teg­rity of the data in elec­tron­ic pro­ced­ures.

³ For the elec­tron­ic fil­ing of sub­mis­sions whose sig­na­ture is re­quired by law, it may ac­cept a dif­fer­ent elec­tron­ic con­firm­a­tion of the in­form­a­tion by the per­son sub­mit­ting it from a qual­i­fied elec­tron­ic sig­na­ture.

¹ Per­sons who are tax­able un­der Art­icle 10 must re­gister with the FTA of their own ac­cord in writ­ing with­in 30 days of the com­mence­ment of their tax li­ab­il­ity. The Ad­min­is­tra­tion shall is­sue them with a non-trans­fer­able num­ber in ac­cord­ance with the re­quire­ments of the Fed­er­al Act of 18 June 2010¹⁴⁷ on the Busi­ness Iden­ti­fic­a­tion Num­ber, which is re­gistered.¹⁴⁸

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

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

¹ Tax­able per­sons without a dom­i­cile, re­gistered of­fice or per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment on Swiss ter­rit­ory must ap­point a rep­res­ent­at­ive to per­form their pro­ced­ur­al ob­lig­a­tions who has their dom­i­cile or re­gistered of­fice in Switzer­land.¹⁴⁹

^1bis The FTA may dis­pense with the ap­point­ment of a rep­res­ent­at­ive in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 1 provided the ful­fil­ment of the pro­ced­ur­al ob­lig­a­tions by the tax­able per­son and the prompt en­force­ment of this Act are guar­an­teed in an­oth­er way; the fore­go­ing is sub­ject to any spe­cif­ic stat­utory pro­vi­sions that may ap­ply.¹⁵⁰

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

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

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

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

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

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

² The tax­able per­son must re­tain in a prop­er man­ner their books of ac­count, re­ceipts, busi­ness doc­u­ments and oth­er re­cords un­til the right to es­tab­lish the tax claim has pre­scribed (Art. 42 para. 6). Art­icles 958f of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions¹⁵¹ ap­plies.¹⁵²

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

a.

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

b.

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

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

a.

could be a tax­able per­son;

b.

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

c.

has re­ceived or sup­plied goods or ser­vices;

d.

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

e.¹⁵³

brings to­geth­er sup­pli­ers and sup­ply re­cip­i­ents with the aid of a di­git­al plat­form.

³ Pro­fes­sion­al con­fid­en­ti­al­ity as pro­tec­ted by law is re­served.

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

² There is no duty of con­fid­en­ti­al­ity:

a.

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

b.

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

c.

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

d.¹⁵⁵

for the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion on tax­able per­sons lis­ted in the Re­gister of Tax­able Per­sons: re­gis­tra­tion num­ber, ad­dress, busi­ness activ­ity and be­gin­ning and end of tax li­ab­il­ity;

e.¹⁵⁶

in the case of meas­ures in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 79a.

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

² The ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies of the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the autonom­ous fed­er­al or­gan­isa­tions and es­tab­lish­ments and all oth­er au­thor­it­ies of the can­tons, dis­tricts, ad­min­is­trat­ive areas and com­munes not men­tioned in para­graph 1 are ob­liged to provide in­form­a­tion to the FTA if the in­form­a­tion re­ques­ted may be of sig­ni­fic­ance for the en­force­ment of this Act and for the col­lec­tion of the tax un­der this Act or for col­lect­ing the busi­ness fee un­der the Fed­er­al Act of 24 March 2006¹⁵⁷ on Ra­dio and Tele­vi­sion; the in­form­a­tion must be provided free of charge. On re­quest, doc­u­ments must be for­war­ded to the FTA free of charge.¹⁵⁸

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

⁴ Dis­putes re­lat­ing to the ob­lig­a­tion of ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies of the Con­fed­er­a­tion to provide in­form­a­tion are de­cided by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil. Dis­putes re­lat­ing to the ob­lig­a­tion of au­thor­it­ies of the can­tons, dis­tricts, ad­min­is­trat­ive areas and com­munes to provide in­form­a­tion are de­cided by the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court (Art. 120 of the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court Act of 17 June 2005¹⁵⁹) if the can­ton­al gov­ern­ment has re­fused the re­quest for in­form­a­tion.

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

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

² It provides ad­min­is­trat­ive as­sist­ance by ana­log­ous ap­plic­a­tion of Art­icle 115a to 115i CustA¹⁶¹.

¹ In or­der to ful­fil its stat­utory du­ties, the FTA is per­mit­ted to pro­cess sens­it­ive per­son­al data, in­clud­ing data on ad­min­is­trat­ive and crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings and sanc­tions.¹⁶⁴

² …¹⁶⁵

³ In or­der to ful­fil its du­ties, the FTA is also au­thor­ised to carry out pro­fil­ing, in­clud­ing high-risk pro­fil­ing as defined in the Data Pro­tec­tion Act of 25 Septem­ber 2020¹⁶⁶:

a.

for re­view and audit pur­poses;

b.

to es­tab­lish tax li­ab­il­ity;

c.

to levy the tax;

d.

to pre­vent and pro­sec­ute breaches of VAT law;

e.

to pro­duce ana­lyses and risk pro­files;

f.

to pro­duce stat­ist­ics.¹⁶⁷

¹ The FTA shall op­er­ate an in­form­a­tion sys­tem for pro­cessing per­son­al data, in­clud­ing sens­it­ive per­son­al data on ad­min­is­trat­ive and crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings and sanc­tions.¹⁶⁹

² The sys­tem serves the fol­low­ing pur­poses:

a.

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

b.

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

c.

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

d.

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

e.

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

f.

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

g.

im­pos­ing and en­for­cing ad­min­is­trat­ive or crim­in­al sanc­tions;

h.

pro­cessing re­quests for ad­min­is­trat­ive or mu­tu­al leg­al as­sist­ance;

i.

com­bat­ing tax crime;

j.

keep­ing the stat­ist­ics re­quired for the col­lec­tion of the tax;

k.

pro­du­cing ana­lyses and risk pro­files.

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

a.

data on the iden­tity of per­sons;

b.

data on eco­nom­ic activ­it­ies;

c.

data on in­come and fin­an­cial cir­cum­stances;

d.

data on tax mat­ters;

e.

data on con­trac­tu­al ob­lig­a­tions and as­sign­ments of claims;

f.

data on debt en­force­ment, bank­ruptcy and at­tach­ment pro­ceed­ings;

g.¹⁷⁰

…

h.

data on the com­pli­ance with tax ob­lig­a­tions;

i.

data on sus­pi­cion of of­fences;

j.

data on of­fences, seized goods and evid­ence;

k.

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

⁴ The Fed­er­al Data Pro­tec­tion and In­form­a­tion Com­mis­sion­er shall have ac­cess to the FTA in­form­a­tion sys­tem for the pur­poses of its su­per­vis­ory du­ties.¹⁷¹

¹ In or­der to ful­fil its stat­utory du­ties un­der Art­icle 10 of the Fed­er­al Audit Of­fice Act of 28 June 1967¹⁷³, the Swiss Fed­er­al Audit Of­fice shall have ac­cess to the FTA in­form­a­tion sys­tem.

² The FTA may dis­close per­son­al data from pro­fil­ing, in­clud­ing data from high-risk pro­fil­ing in terms of Art­icle 76 para­graph 3 and data in terms of Art­icle 76a para­graph 3, or make such data ac­cess­ible on­line to the per­sons in the FO­CBS en­trus­ted with the im­pos­i­tion and col­lec­tion of VAT or with the con­duct of crim­in­al and ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­ceed­ings, provided this is ne­ces­sary for them to ful­fil their du­ties.¹⁷⁴

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

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

The Fed­er­al Coun­cil shall is­sue im­ple­ment­ing pro­vi­sions on:

a.

the in­form­a­tion sys­tem;

b.

the cat­egor­ies of per­son­al data pro­cessed;

c.

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

d.

rights to ac­cess and pro­cess data;

e.

the re­ten­tion peri­od for the data; and

f.

the archiv­ing and de­struc­tion of the data.

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

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

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

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

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

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

⁶ Find­ings that con­cern third parties and that are made dur­ing an audit in ac­cord­ance with para­graphs 1–4 at any of the fol­low­ing in­sti­tu­tions may only be used for the pur­poses of col­lect­ing value ad­ded tax:

a.

the Swiss Na­tion­al Bank;

b.

a cent­ral mort­gage bond in­sti­tu­tion;

c.

a bank or sav­ings bank as defined in the Bank­ing Act of 8 Novem­ber 1934¹⁷⁸;

d.

a fin­an­cial in­sti­tu­tion as defined in the Fin­an­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act of 15 June 2018¹⁷⁹;

e.

a fin­an­cial mar­ket in­fra­struc­ture as defined in the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket In­fra­struc­ture Act of 19 June 2015¹⁸⁰.¹⁸¹

⁷ Pro­fes­sion­al secrecy in ac­cord­ance with the Bank­ing Act, the Fin­an­cial In­sti­tu­tions Act and the Fin­an­cial Mar­ket In­fra­struc­ture Act must be pre­served.¹⁸²

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

² The tax claim is es­tab­lished with an as­sess­ment no­tice.

¹ The FTA may or­der ad­min­is­trat­ive meas­ures against a tax­able per­son who makes sup­plies on Swiss ter­rit­ory in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 7 para­graph 3 let­ter b if that per­son:

a.

fails to re­gister as a tax­able per­son; or

b.

fails to com­ply or only par­tially com­plies with their re­port­ing or pay­ment ob­lig­a­tions.

² The FTA shall hear the tax­able per­son be­fore de­cid­ing on the ad­min­is­trat­ive meas­ures. The sup­ply re­cip­i­ents shall not be heard.

³ The FTA may or­der a ban on the im­port of goods that are ex­empt from im­port tax un­der Art­icle 53 para­graph 1 let­ter a be­cause of the neg­li­gible amount of tax. If the tax­able per­son con­tin­ues to fail to com­ply with their ob­lig­a­tions des­pite the im­port ban, the FTA may or­der the de­struc­tion of the goods without com­pens­a­tion.

⁴ The meas­ures shall be en­forced by the FO­CBS.

⁵ The FTA shall pub­lish the names of tax­able per­sons against whom meas­ures in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 3 have been ordered in a leg­ally bind­ing rul­ing.

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

¹ The pro­vi­sions of the APA¹⁸⁴ ap­ply. Art­icle 2 para­graph 1 APA does not ap­ply to the VAT pro­ced­ure.

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

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

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

a.

the ex­ist­ence or scale of the tax li­ab­il­ity is dis­puted;

b.

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

c.

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

d.

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

e.

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

f.

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

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

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

² Op­pos­i­tion must be filed with the FTA in writ­ing. It must con­tain the pe­ti­tion, the grounds for op­pos­i­tion cit­ing the evid­ence and the sig­na­ture of the op­pos­ing party or of their rep­res­ent­at­ive. The rep­res­ent­at­ive must provide proof of iden­tity by writ­ten power of at­tor­ney. The evid­ence must be de­scribed in the let­ter of op­pos­i­tion and en­closed with it.

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

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

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

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

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

The re­view, ex­plan­a­tion and cor­rec­tion of as­sess­ment no­tices, rul­ings and op­pos­i­tion de­cisions of the FTA are gov­erned by Art­icles 66–69 APA¹⁸⁵.

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

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

³ By re­ject­ing the sum­mons for pay­ment, the tax­able per­son in­stig­ates the pro­ced­ure to con­tin­ue en­force­ment pro­ceed­ings. The FTA is re­spons­ible for set­ting aside the re­jec­tion of the sum­mons for pay­ment in the rul­ing and op­pos­i­tion pro­ced­ure.

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

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

⁶ Art­icle 85a of the Fed­er­al Act of 11 April 1889¹⁸⁶ on Debt En­force­ment and Bank­ruptcy (DEBA) does not ap­ply.

⁷ The col­lec­tion of a tax amount un­der para­graph 2 does not af­fect the fi­nal tax claim un­der Art­icles 72, 78 and 82 from be­ing es­tab­lished. If the tax claim can­not be es­tab­lished due to a fail­ure of the tax­able per­son to act, in par­tic­u­lar be­cause they fail to cor­rect er­rors un­der Art­icle 72 or to re­quest a rul­ing un­der Art­icle 82, on the pre­scrip­tion of the right to es­tab­lish the tax, the tax amounts es­tab­lished by the FTA un­der para­graph 2 be­come the tax claim.¹⁸⁷

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

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

¹⁰ Para­graphs 1-9 ap­ply re­gard­less of which re­port­ing peri­od has been chosen.¹⁸⁸

¹ In the case of an­nu­al re­port­ing (Art. 35a), the tax shall be col­lec­ted on a pro­vi­sion­al basis by pay­ing in in­stal­ments that are de­term­ined and in­voiced by the FTA.

² The tax claim in the last tax peri­od is de­cis­ive in de­term­in­ing the in­stal­ments. If it is not yet known, it is es­tim­ated by the FTA. In the case of new tax­able per­sons, the tax claim ex­pec­ted by the end of the first tax peri­od is de­cis­ive.

³ If the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od (Art. 36) or the flat tax rate meth­od (Art. 37 para. 5) is used, one in­stal­ment shall amount one quarter of the tax claim, and in the case of re­port­ing us­ing the net tax rate meth­od (Art. 37 paras. 1-4), one in­stal­ment shall amount to half of the tax claim in ac­cord­ance with para­graph 2.

⁴ No neg­li­gible amounts will be charged.

⁵ A tax­able per­son who con­siders the in­stal­ments to be too high or too low may ap­ply to the FTA for an ad­just­ment.

⁶ The in­stal­ments shall be paid:

a.

when ap­ply­ing the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od and the flat tax rate meth­od: with­in 150, 240 and 330 days of the be­gin­ning of the tax peri­od;

b.

in the case of re­port­ing us­ing the net tax rate meth­od: with­in 240 days of the be­gin­ning of the tax peri­od.

⁷ The in­stal­ments paid shall be cred­ited against the tax claim ac­cord­ing to the sub­mit­ted an­nu­al re­turn.

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

^1bis In the case of pro­vi­sion­al tax col­lec­tion un­der the an­nu­al re­port­ing meth­od, in­terest is pay­able on the amount due without a re­mind­er if the tax­able per­son pays the in­stal­ments after the dead­line or does not pay them in full.¹⁹⁰

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

¹ If the tax re­turn or the in­stal­ments paid against the tax claim res­ult in a sur­plus in fa­vour of the tax­able per­son, this shall be re­im­bursed to the tax­able per­son.¹⁹¹

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

a.

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

b.

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

c.

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

³ The tax­able per­son may re­claim taxes paid but not due if the tax claim is not yet leg­ally bind­ing.¹⁹²

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

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

² If the tax claim is not yet leg­ally bind­ing and if it is dis­puted, the FTA shall is­sue a rul­ing. Un­til a leg­ally bind­ing rul­ing is is­sued, the fi­nal rank­ing of cred­it­ors is sus­pen­ded.¹⁹³

³ By re­ject­ing the sum­mons for pay­ment, the tax­able per­son in­stig­ates the pro­ced­ure to con­tin­ue en­force­ment pro­ceed­ings. The FTA is re­spons­ible for set­ting aside the re­jec­tion of the sum­mons for pay­ment.

⁴ …¹⁹⁴

⁵ The FTA must re­gister the tax claim in the pub­lic in­vent­or­ies or on pub­lic no­tices to cred­it­ors.¹⁹⁵

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

⁶ If a cer­ti­fic­ate of short­fall is is­sued in re­spect of a tax claim, the pre­script­ive peri­od for col­lec­tion is gov­erned by the pro­vi­sions of the DEBA¹⁹⁶.

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

a.

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

b.

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

c.

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

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

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

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

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

⁶ …¹⁹⁷

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

a.

their pay­ment on time ap­pears to be at risk;

b.

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

c.

the tax­able per­son is in ar­rears with pay­ment;

d.

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

e.

the tax­able per­son sub­mits re­turns that are ob­vi­ously too low.

^1bis The FTA may re­quire a mem­ber of the man­aging body of a leg­al per­son to provide se­cur­ity for taxes, in­terest and costs owed or likely to be owed by that leg­al per­son if:

a.

the mem­ber in ques­tion be­longed to the man­aging body of at least two oth­er leg­al per­sons in re­spect of which bank­ruptcy pro­ceed­ings have been opened with­in a short peri­od of time; and

b.

there are in­dic­a­tions that the mem­ber con­cerned has ac­ted in a crim­in­al man­ner in con­nec­tion with these bank­ruptcies.¹⁹⁸

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

³ The rul­ing re­quir­ing se­cur­ity must cite the leg­al reas­on for the se­cur­ity, the amount to be se­cured and the of­fice that ac­cepts the se­cur­ity; it qual­i­fies as a freez­ing or­der in terms of Art­icle 274 DEBA¹⁹⁹. There is no right of op­pos­i­tion against the rul­ing re­quir­ing se­cur­ity.

⁴ An ob­jec­tion may be filed against the rul­ing in the Fed­er­al Ad­min­is­trat­ive Court.

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

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

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

¹ A pur­chaser who uses an elec­tron­ic pro­ced­ure to pur­chase goods for tour­ist ex­port may be re­ques­ted to provide se­cur­ity in the amount of the cor­res­pond­ing tax at the time of pur­chase.

² The se­cur­ity shall be re­fun­ded if proof of ex­port is fur­nished with­in the pre­scribed peri­od.

¹ A sur­plus in fa­vour of the tax­able per­son res­ult­ing from the tax re­turn or from the dif­fer­ence between the in­stal­ments paid and the tax claim may:²⁰¹

a.

be set off against debts from pri­or peri­ods;

b.

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

c.

be set off against se­cur­ity re­quired by the FTA.

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

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

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

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

a.

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

b.

by ob­tain­ing an in­cor­rect re­fund; or

c.

by ob­tain­ing an un­jus­ti­fied tax abate­ment;

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

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

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

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

a.

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

b.

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

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

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

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

¹ The fine is de­term­ined by ap­ply­ing Art­icle 106 para­graph 3 of the Swiss Crim­in­al Code (SCC)²⁰²; Art­icle 34 SCC may be ap­plied by ana­logy. If the tax ad­vant­age ob­tained by the act is great­er than the threatened pen­alty and the of­fence was com­mit­ted wil­fully, the fine may be in­creased to a max­im­um of two times the tax ad­vant­age.

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

a.

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

b.

com­mit­ting of­fences against VAT law for com­mer­cial gain.

Any per­son who wil­fully or neg­li­gently:

a.

does not re­gister as a tax­able per­son;

b.

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

c.

does not de­clare the tax in the right peri­od;

d.

does not provide se­cur­ity prop­erly;

e.

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

f.

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

g.

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

h.

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

i.

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

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

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

If a fine not ex­ceed­ing 100,000 francs would be ap­plic­able and if the tra­cing of the of­fend­ers un­der Art­icle 6 ACLA²⁰³ would re­quire in­vest­ig­a­tions the cost of which would be dis­pro­por­tion­ate to the pen­alty oth­er­wise for­feited, the au­thor­ity may dis­pense with pur­su­ing the of­fend­ers and in­stead or­der the busi­ness (Art. 7 ACLA) to pay the fine.

¹ Art­icles 7, 9, 11 and 12 para­graphs 4 and 13 ACLA²⁰⁴ do not ap­ply.

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

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

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

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

¹ Tax­able per­sons who re­port them­selves for an of­fence un­der this Act be­fore it comes to the at­ten­tion of the com­pet­ent au­thor­ity will not be pro­sec­uted if:

a.

they as­sist the au­thor­ity in a reas­on­able man­ner in es­tab­lish­ing the tax pay­able or re­fund­able; and

b.

they make a ser­i­ous ef­fort to pay the tax due or re­fund­able.

² Non-tax­able per­sons who re­port an of­fence un­der this Act that they have com­mit­ted or have par­ti­cip­ated in will not be pro­sec­uted.

³ A leg­al en­tity re­ports it­self through its ex­ec­ut­ive bod­ies or rep­res­ent­at­ives. Joint and sev­er­al li­ab­il­ity un­der Art­icle 12 para­graph 3 ACLA²⁰⁵ of the ex­ec­ut­ive bod­ies or of the rep­res­ent­at­ives does not ap­ply and no pro­sec­u­tion will be brought.

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

¹ With the ex­cep­tion of Art­icles 63 para­graphs 1 and 2, 69 para­graph 2, 73 para­graph 1 last sen­tence and 77 para­graph 4, the ACLA²⁰⁶ gov­erns pro­sec­u­tion.

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

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

⁴ Pro­sec­u­tion may be dis­pensed with if the level of culp­ab­il­ity and the con­sequences of the crime are neg­li­gible (Art. 52 SCC²⁰⁷). In these cases, a non-in­ter­ven­tion or no-pro­ceed­ings rul­ing is is­sued.

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

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

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

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

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

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

a.

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

b.²⁰⁸

in re­la­tion to do­mest­ic and ac­quis­i­tion tax:

1.

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

2.

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

3.

for of­fences un­der Art­icle 97 para­graph 2 and un­der Art­icles 14–17 ACLA²⁰⁹: sev­en years after the end of the rel­ev­ant tax peri­od;

c.²¹⁰

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

d. and e.²¹¹

…

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

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

a.

in prin­ciple by Art­icle 42;

b.

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

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

¹ The fines and costs im­posed in the crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings in re­spect of tax of­fences are col­lec­ted in ac­cord­ance with Art­icles 86–90. Art­icle 36 SCC²¹² ap­plies.

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

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil:

a.

reg­u­lates the re­lief from VAT for be­ne­fi­ciar­ies un­der Art­icle 2 of the Host State Act of 22 June 2007²¹³ who are ex­empt from li­ab­il­ity for tax;

b.

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

c.²¹⁴

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

² …²¹⁵

³ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil is­sues the im­ple­ment­ing reg­u­la­tions.

The FDF:

a.

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

b.

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

c.

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

d.²¹⁶

de­term­ines what is deemed to be the amount that is so neg­li­gible that it need not be in­voiced as pro­vi­sion­al tax.

¹ The Fed­er­al Coun­cil may ap­point a con­sultat­ive com­mit­tee com­pris­ing rep­res­ent­at­ives of tax­able per­sons, the can­tons, aca­demia, tax spe­cial­ists, and con­sumers.²¹⁷

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

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

The VAT Act of 2 Septem­ber 1999²¹⁸ is re­pealed.

The fol­low­ing fed­er­al acts are amended as fol­lows:

…²¹⁹