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

(Art. 3 let. a VAT Act)

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

(Art. 3 let. d VAT Act)

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

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

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

(Art. 7 para. 3 let. a VAT Act)²

¹ ...³

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

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

(Art. 7 para. 1 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

² In par­tic­u­lar the fol­low­ing qual­i­fy as per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ments:

a.

branches;

b.

factor­ies;

c.

work­shops;

d.

points of pur­chase or sale;

e.

per­man­ent rep­res­ent­a­tions;

f.

mines and oth­er sites for the ex­trac­tion of nat­ur­al re­sources;

g.

con­struc­tion and as­sembly sites last­ing for at least twelve months;

h.

prop­erty used for ag­ri­cul­tur­al, graz­ing and forestry pur­poses.

³ In par­tic­u­lar the fol­low­ing are not per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ments:

a.

pure dis­tri­bu­tion ware­houses;

b.

means of trans­port that are em­ployed for their ori­gin­al pur­pose;

c.

in­form­a­tion, rep­res­ent­a­tion and ad­vert­ising of­fices of busi­nesses that are au­thor­ised only to per­form cor­res­pond­ing sup­port activ­it­ies.

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

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

(Art. 9 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 9 VAT Act)

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

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

(Art. 10 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

a.

on the date of com­mence­ment or ex­pan­sion of the activ­ity; or

b.

on the date of the re-as­sess­ment, but at the latest at the be­gin­ning of the fourth month.

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

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

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

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

a.

when a sup­ply is made for the first time on Swiss ter­rit­ory; or

b.

on the date of the re-as­sess­ment, but at the latest at the be­gin­ning of the fourth month.

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

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

¹ Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion and elec­tron­ic ser­vices are in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

ra­dio and tele­vi­sion ser­vices;

b.

the pro­vi­sion of ac­cess au­thor­isa­tion, in par­tic­u­lar to fixed line and mo­bile net­works, to satel­lite com­mu­nic­a­tion and to oth­er in­form­a­tion net­works;

c.

the pro­vi­sion and guar­an­tee of data trans­fer ca­pa­city;

d.

the pro­vi­sion of web­sites, web­host­ing, and the tele-ser­vi­cing of pro­grams and equip­ment;

e.

the elec­tron­ic pro­vi­sion of soft­ware and its up­dat­ing;

f.

the elec­tron­ic pro­vi­sion of im­ages, texts and in­form­a­tion and the pro­vi­sion of data­bases;

g.¹²

the elec­tron­ic pro­vi­sion of mu­sic, films and games, in­clud­ing gambling.

² Tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion or elec­tron­ic ser­vices do not in­clude in par­tic­u­lar:

a.

the mere com­mu­nic­a­tion between the per­sons provid­ing and re­ceiv­ing the ser­vice by wire, wire­less, op­tic­al or oth­er elec­tro-mag­net­ic me­dia;

b.

edu­ca­tion­al ser­vices with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­ber 11 VAT Act in in­ter­act­ive form;

c.

the mere lend­ing for use of pre­cisely des­ig­nated equip­ment or equip­ment parts for the sole use of the less­ee for the trans­mit­tal of data.

(Art. 12 para. 1 VAT Act)

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

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

a.

Swiss and for­eign pub­lic cor­por­a­tions such as spe­cial-pur­pose as­so­ci­ations;

b.

pub­lic law in­sti­tu­tions with their own leg­al per­son­al­ity;

c.

pub­lic law found­a­tions with their own leg­al per­son­al­ity;

d.

simple part­ner­ships of pub­lic au­thor­it­ies.

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

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

(Art. 12 para. 4 VAT Act)

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

1.

ser­vices in the field of ra­dio and tele­vi­sion, tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion ser­vices and elec­tron­ic ser­vices;

2.

sup­plies of wa­ter, gas, elec­tri­city, thermal en­ergy, eth­an­ol, de­na­tur­ing agents and sim­il­ar goods;

3.

trans­port of goods and people;

4.

ser­vices in har­bours and air­ports;

5.

sup­plies of new fin­ished goods for sale;

6.¹⁶

...

7.

or­gan­ising fairs and ex­hib­i­tions with a com­mer­cial char­ac­ter;

8.

op­er­at­ing sports fa­cil­it­ies, such as pub­lic baths and skat­ing rinks;

9.

ware­hous­ing;

10.

activ­it­ies of com­mer­cial ad­vert­ising of­fices;

11.

activ­it­ies of travel agents;

12.

sup­plies by fact­ory canteens, staff res­taur­ants, sales of­fices and sim­il­ar es­tab­lish­ments;

13.

activ­it­ies of pub­lic not­ar­ies;

14.

activ­it­ies of sur­vey­ing of­fices;

15.

activ­it­ies in the field of waste dis­pos­al;

16.

activ­it­ies fin­anced by pre­paid dis­pos­al fees based on Art­icle 32a^bis of the En­vir­on­ment­al Pro­tec­tion Act of 7 Oc­to­ber 1983¹⁷ (EPA);

17.

activ­it­ies in the course of the con­struc­tion of traffic in­fra­struc­ture;

18.

ex­haust gas in­spec­tions;

19.

ad­vert­ising ser­vices.

(Art. 13 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 13 VAT Act)

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

² In­sur­ance agents may be mem­bers of a group.

³ ...¹⁸

(Art. 13 VAT Act)

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

² The form­a­tion of sev­er­al sub-groups is per­miss­ible.

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

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

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

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

a.

a mem­ber of the VAT group dom­i­ciled on Swiss ter­rit­ory; or

b.

a per­son who is not a mem­ber but who has its dom­i­cile or a place of busi­ness on Swiss ter­rit­ory.

(Art. 13 VAT Act)

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

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

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

(Art. 13 VAT Act)

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

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

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

(Art. 13 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

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

(Art. 15 para. 4 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 15 para. 4 VAT Act)

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

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

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

(Art. 15 para. 4 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 18 para. 1 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 18 para. 1 VAT Act)

Private or­gan­isa­tions with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 32a^bisEPA²⁰make sup­plies to man­u­fac­tur­ers and im­port­ers through their activ­it­ies. The pre­paid dis­pos­al fees are a con­sid­er­a­tion for these ser­vices.

(Art. 18 VAT Act)

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

a.

a for­eign em­ploy­er em­ploys an em­ploy­ee in a de­ploy­ment op­er­a­tion on Swiss ter­rit­ory be­long­ing to the same group of com­pan­ies or an em­ploy­er em­ploys an em­ploy­ee in a for­eign de­ploy­ment op­er­a­tion be­long­ing to the same group;

b.

the em­ploy­ee works for the de­ploy­ment op­er­a­tion but re­tains the em­ploy­ment con­tract with the post­ing busi­ness; and

c.

the wages, so­cial se­cur­ity con­tri­bu­tions and re­lated ex­penses are charged by the post­ing em­ploy­er to the de­ploy­ment op­er­a­tion without a sur­charge.

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

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

a.

fin­an­cial as­sist­ance with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 3 para­graph 1 of the Sub­sidies Act of 5 Oc­to­ber 1990²¹ (SubA);

b.

com­pens­a­tion with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 3 para­graph 2 let­ter a SubA, provided if a sup­ply re­la­tion­ship ex­ists;

c.

re­search con­tri­bu­tions, provided the pub­lic au­thor­ity does not have an ex­clus­ive right to the res­ults of the re­search;

d.

cash flows com­par­able with let­ters a–c that are paid un­der can­ton­al and com­mun­al law.

(Art. 18 para. 2 VAT Act)

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

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

(Art. 19 para. 1 VAT Act)

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

a.

are in­voiced to the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply sep­ar­ately or are in­cluded in the price of the products;

b.

are de­livered to the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply or to a third per­son des­ig­nated by the re­cip­i­ent of the sup­ply, or not after per­form­ance of the man­u­fac­tur­ing con­tract.

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

(Art. 19 para. 2 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 19 para. 2 VAT Act)

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

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

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

² The fol­low­ing are equi­val­ent to hu­man med­ic­al treat­ment:

a.

spe­cial ma­ter­nity ser­vices, such as check-ups, birth pre­par­a­tion or breast feed­ing ad­vice;

b.

ex­am­in­a­tions, con­sulta­tions and treat­ment re­lated to ar­ti­fi­cial in­sem­in­a­tion, con­tra­cep­tion or abor­tion;

c.

sup­plies of goods and sup­plies of ser­vices by a doc­tor or a dent­ist when destined for a med­ic­al re­port or an ex­pert opin­ion for the as­sess­ment of so­cial se­cur­ity claims.

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

a.

ex­am­in­a­tions, con­sulta­tions and treat­ment solely for the pur­poses of en­han­cing well­being or per­form­ance or which are provided merely for aes­thet­ic reas­ons, un­less the ex­am­in­a­tion, ad­vice or treat­ment is provided by a doc­tor or dent­ist who is au­thor­ised to prac­tise his or her pro­fes­sion on Swiss ter­rit­ory;

b.

the ex­am­in­a­tions car­ried out for the pur­pose of writ­ing an ex­pert re­port which are not re­lated to a spe­cif­ic treat­ment of the per­son ex­amined, ex­cept for the cases un­der para­graph 2 let­ter c;

c.

the dis­pens­ing of medi­cines or of med­ic­al ap­pli­ances, un­less they are used by the per­son provid­ing the treat­ment in the course of hu­man med­ic­al treat­ment;

d.

the dis­pens­ing of self-man­u­fac­tured or pur­chased pros­theses and or­tho­paed­ic equip­ment, even if this takes place in the course of hu­man med­ic­al treat­ment; a pros­thes­is is a re­place­ment body part that can be sep­ar­ated from the body without an op­er­a­tion and re­in­ser­ted or at­tached;

e.

ba­sic care ac­tions; these con­sti­tute nurs­ing care ser­vices un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 num­ber 4 VAT Act.

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

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

a.

is in pos­ses­sion of the li­cence to prac­tise its pro­fes­sion in­de­pend­ently re­quired by the can­ton­al law; or

b.

is ac­cred­ited to provide hu­man med­ic­al treat­ment in ac­cord­ance with the can­ton­al law.

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

a.

doc­tors;

b.

dent­ists;

c.

dent­al tech­ni­cians;

c^bis.²³

dent­al hy­gien­ists;

d.

psy­cho­ther­ap­ists;

e.

chiro­pract­ors;

f.

physio­ther­ap­ists;

g.

er­go­ther­ap­ists;

h.

na­tur­o­paths, non-med­ic­al prac­ti­tion­ers, nat­ur­al non-med­ic­al prac­ti­tion­ers;

i.

child­birth carers and mid­wives;

j.

nurses;

k.

med­ic­al mas­seurs and mas­seuses;

l.

speech ther­ap­ists;

m.

di­et­ary ad­visers;

n.

pod­o­lo­gists;

o.²⁴

…

p.²⁵

…

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

¹ ...²⁶

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

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

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

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

³ The tax ex­emp­tion ex­tends to:

a.

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

b.

sup­plies between in­sti­tu­tions or found­a­tions es­tab­lished ex­clus­ively by pub­lic au­thor­it­ies and com­pan­ies held ex­clus­ively by such in­sti­tu­tions or found­a­tions, wheth­er dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly, or in­sti­tu­tions and found­a­tions dir­ectly or in­dir­ectly es­tab­lished by such in­sti­tu­tions and found­a­tions.

(Art. 21 para. 7 VAT Act)

¹ Edu­ca­tion­al and re­search in­sti­tu­tions are:

a.

high­er edu­ca­tion in­sti­tu­tions sup­por­ted by the Con­fed­er­a­tion and can­tons un­der Art­icle 63a of the Fed­er­al Con­sti­tu­tion³⁰ in ac­cord­ance with a leg­al basis;

b.

non-profit or­gan­isa­tions un­der Art­icle 3 let­ter j VAT Act, and pub­lic au­thor­it­ies un­der Art­icle 12 VAT Act;

c.

pub­lic hos­pit­als, ir­re­spect­ive of their leg­al form.

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

(Art. 22 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 23 para. 4 VAT Act)

¹ Ex­empt from the tax with cred­it are:

a.

trans­port by air where either the place of ar­rival or of de­par­ture lies on Swiss ter­rit­ory;

b.

trans­port by air from one for­eign air­port to an­oth­er for­eign air­port cross­ing Swiss ter­rit­ory.

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

(Art. 23 para. 4 VAT Act)

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

a.

trans­port on sec­tions of a jour­ney where either the de­par­ture or the ar­rival sta­tion lies on Swiss ter­rit­ory;

b.

trans­port on Swiss sec­tions of a jour­ney used in trans­it to link the de­par­ture and the ar­rival sta­tions loc­ated abroad.

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

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

(Art. 23 para. 4 VAT Act)

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

a.

pass pre­dom­in­antly over for­eign ter­rit­ory; or

b.

are used in trans­it to link the places of de­par­ture and of ar­rival loc­ated abroad.

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

(Art. 107 para. 2 VAT Act)

¹ Ex­empt from the tax with cred­it are turnovers in:

a.

state min­ted gold coins with cus­toms tar­iff num­bers 7118.9000³³ and 9705.0000³⁴;

b.³⁵

gold for in­vest­ment pur­poses with a min­im­um fine­ness of 995 per mille, in the form of:

1.

cast bars bear­ing a fine­ness mark and the stamp of a re­cog­nised as­say­er-melt­er, or

2.

pressed bars bear­ing a fine­ness mark and the stamp of a re­cog­nised as­say­er-melt­er or a re­spons­ib­il­ity mark re­gistered on Swiss ter­rit­ory;

c.³⁶

gold in the form of gran­ules with a min­im­um fine­ness of 995 per mille, which have been packed and sealed by an ac­cred­ited as­say­er-melt­er;

d.

un­pro­cessed or semi-fin­ished gold that is destined for re­fin­ing or re­cov­ery;

e.

gold in the form of clip­pings and scrap.

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

(Art. 24 para. 1 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

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

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

(Art. 24 para. 1 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 24 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

² It shall take in­to con­sid­er­a­tion that:

a.

the fund does not pay out all the con­tri­bu­tions re­ceived; and

b.

the tax­able cus­tom­ers of waste dis­pos­al ser­vices and wa­ter sup­plies have de­duc­ted the tax there­on in­voiced to them in full as in­put tax.

(Art. 24a para. 4 VAT Act)

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

a.

pictori­al works per­son­ally cre­ated by artists such as oil paint­ings, wa­ter col­ours, pas­tels, draw­ings, col­lages and the like; ex­emp­ted there­from are plans and draw­ings for ar­chi­tec­tur­al, en­gin­eer­ing, in­dus­tri­al, com­mer­cial, to­po­graph­ic­al or sim­il­ar pur­poses, hand-dec­or­ated man­u­fac­tured art­icles, the­at­ric­al scenery, stu­dio back cloths or the like of painted can­vas;

b.

ori­gin­al en­grav­ings, prints and litho­graphs, be­ing im­pres­sions pro­duced in lim­ited num­bers dir­ectly in black and white or in col­our of one or more plates ex­ecuted en­tirely by hand by the artist, ir­re­spect­ive of the pro­cess or of the ma­ter­i­al em­ployed, but not in­clud­ing any mech­an­ic­al or pho­tomech­an­ic­al pro­cess;

c.

seri­graphs that dis­play the fea­tures of an ori­gin­al in­di­vidu­ally cre­ated artist­ic work, have been pro­duced in lim­ited num­bers and have been ex­ecuted from re­pro­duc­tion forms com­pletely hand-made by the cre­at­or;

d.

ori­gin­al sculp­tures and statu­ary, in any ma­ter­i­al, provided that they are ex­ecuted en­tirely by the artist; sculp­ture casts the pro­duc­tion of which is in lim­ited num­bers and su­per­vised by the artist or his suc­cessors in title;

e.

tapestries and wall tex­tiles made by hand from ori­gin­al designs provided by artists, provided that the pro­duc­tion is in lim­ited num­bers;

f.

in­di­vidu­al pieces of ceram­ics ex­ecuted en­tirely by the artist and signed by him or her;

g.

enamels on cop­per, ex­ecuted en­tirely by hand, pro­duced in lim­ited num­bers and bear­ing the sig­na­ture of the artist or the stu­dio;

h.

pho­to­graphs taken by the artist, prin­ted by him or her or un­der his or her su­per­vi­sion in lim­ited num­bers, signed and numbered;

i.

works of art per­son­ally cre­ated by the artist in lim­ited num­bers that are not men­tioned in let­ters a–h.

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

³ Col­lect­ors’ items are in par­tic­u­lar also:

a.

post­age stamps, rev­en­ue stamps, post­marks first day cov­ers, postal sta­tion­ery and the like, used, or if un­used not cur­rent and not in­ten­ded to be cur­rent;

b.

zo­olo­gic­al, botan­ic­al, min­er­alo­gic­al or ana­tom­ic­al col­lect­ors’ items and col­lec­tions; col­lect­ors’ items of his­tor­ic, ar­chae­olo­gic­al, pa­lae­on­to­lo­gic­al, eth­no­lo­gic­al or nu­mis­mat­ic in­terest;

c.

mo­tor vehicles first re­gistered on pur­chase more than 30 years pre­vi­ously;

d.

wines and oth­er al­co­hol­ic bever­ages the vin­tage of which is dis­played and which may be in­di­vidu­al­ised by num­ber­ing or by oth­er means;

e.

goods made of pre­cious met­al, clad with pre­cious met­al, gem­stones, pre­cious stones and the like, such as jew­ellery, watches and coins, that have a col­lect­or’s value.

(Art. 24a para. 5 VAT Act)

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

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

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

(Art. 24a VAT Act)

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

(Art. 24a VAT Act)

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

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

Med­ic­a­tion is defined as:

a.

au­thor­ised ready-to-use medi­cin­al products and pre­mixed veter­in­ary medi­cin­al products in ac­cord­ance with Art­icle 9 para­graph 1 of the Thera­peut­ic Products Act of 15 Decem­ber 2000⁴³ (TPA) and the re­lated fin­ished Ga­len­ic products;

b.⁴⁴

ready-to-use medi­cin­al products that do not re­quire au­thor­isa­tion un­der Art­icle 9 para­graphs 2 and 2^ter TPA, with the ex­cep­tion of hu­man and an­im­al whole blood;

c. ⁴⁵

ready-to-use medi­cin­al products that have been tem­por­ar­ily au­thor­ised un­der Art­icle 9a TPA or tem­por­ar­ily li­censed un­der Art­icle 9b TPA;

d.⁴⁶

non-au­thor­ised ready-to-use medi­cin­al products un­der Art­icles 48 and 49 para­graphs 1–4 of the Medi­cin­al Products Li­cens­ing Or­din­ance of 14 Novem­ber 2018⁴⁷ and Art­icle 7–7c of the Veter­in­ary Medi­cin­al Products Or­din­ance of 18 Au­gust 2004⁴⁸.

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

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

a.

they ap­pear peri­od­ic­ally, at least twice a year;

b.

they provide up-to-date in­form­a­tion or en­ter­tain­ment;

c.

they al­ways bear the same title;

d.

they are con­sec­ut­ively numbered and con­tain the date and the fre­quency of pub­lic­a­tion;

e.

they are presen­ted as news­pa­pers or magazines;

f.

they are not made up pre­dom­in­antly of space for en­ter­ing text or oth­er ma­ter­i­al.

(Art. 25 para. 2 let. a^bis VAT Act)

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

a.

are trans­mit­ted elec­tron­ic­ally or offered on data car­ri­ers;

b.

are pre­dom­in­antly text or im­age-based; and

c.

es­sen­tially ful­fil the same pur­pose as prin­ted news­pa­pers and magazines un­der Art­icle 50.

² Elec­tron­ic news­pa­pers and magazines without ad­vert­ising char­ac­ter also in­clude au­dio news­pa­pers and magazines whose con­tent largely cor­res­ponds to that of the ori­gin­al work.

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

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

a.

they are in the form of books, bro­chures or loose leaf books; loose leaf products are books if they con­sist of a bind­ing cov­er, fit­ted with a screw post, spir­al or ring bind­er and the loose leaf pages to be filed therein con­tain when com­plete at least 16 pages and the title of the work ap­pears on the bind­ing cov­er;

b.

in­clud­ing the jack­et and the cov­er page they con­tain at least 16 pages, with the ex­cep­tion of chil­dren’s books, prin­ted mu­sic and parts of loose leaf works;

c.

the con­tent is re­li­gious, lit­er­ary, artist­ic, en­ter­tain­ing, edu­ca­tion­al, in­struct­ive, in­form­at­ive, tech­nic­al or sci­entif­ic;

d.

they are not de­signed to be writ­ten in or to store pic­tures for col­lec­tion, with the ex­cep­tion of school and in­struc­tion books and cer­tain chil­dren’s books, such as ex­er­cise books with il­lus­tra­tions and sup­ple­ment­ary text and draw­ing and paint­ing books with designs and in­struc­tions.

(Art. 25 para. 2 let. a^bis VAT Act)

¹ Elec­tron­ic books without ad­vert­ising char­ac­ter are elec­tron­ic products that:

a.

are trans­mit­ted elec­tron­ic­ally or offered on data car­ri­ers;

b.

are self-con­tained, pre­dom­in­antly text or im­age-based and non-in­ter­act­ive in­di­vidu­al works; and

c.

serve es­sen­tially the same func­tion as prin­ted books in terms of Art­icle 51.

² Elec­tron­ic books without ad­vert­ising char­ac­ter also in­clude au­diobooks whose con­tent largely cor­res­ponds to that of the ori­gin­al work.

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

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

² Third parties be­hind a pub­lish­er are:

a.

per­sons and busi­nesses, on whose be­half the pub­lish­er acts; or

b.

oth­er per­sons closely re­lated to the pub­lish­er with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 3 let­ter h VAT Act.

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

(Art. 25 para. 3 VAT Act)

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

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

(Art. 25 para. 3 VAT Act)

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

a.

to whom the in­stall­a­tions be­long;

b.

wheth­er the cus­tom­er ac­tu­ally uses the in­stall­a­tion;

c.

wheth­er the in­stall­a­tions are suf­fi­cient to en­able all cus­tom­ers to con­sume on the premises.

² The fol­low­ing do not con­sti­tute con­sump­tion in­stall­a­tions:

a.

mere seat­ing ac­com­mod­a­tion for rest­ing pur­poses without as­so­ci­ated tables;

b.

in kiosks or res­taur­ants on camp­ing sites: the tents and cara­vans of the ten­ants.

(Art. 25 para. 3 VAT Act)

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

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

a.

the will ex­pressed by the cus­tom­er to take the food away;

b.

the hand­ing over of the food in a spe­cial pack­age suit­able for trans­port;

c.

the hand­ing over of food that is not suit­able for im­me­di­ate con­sump­tion.

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

(Art. 25 para. 3 VAT Act)

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

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

(Art. 28 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

(Art. 107 para. 2 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

a.

the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure un­der Art­icle 38 VAT Act was ap­plied on the pur­chase of the good;

b.

the tax­able per­son im­por­ted the good;

c.

goods un­der Art­icle 44 para­graph 1 let­ters a and b and para­graph 2 have been pur­chased;

d.

the tax­able per­son knows or should have known that the good was im­por­ted ex­empt from the tax.

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

Re­pealed

(Art. 30 VAT Act)

The cor­rec­tion of the in­put tax de­duc­tion may be cal­cu­lated:

a.

ac­cord­ing to ef­fect­ive us­age;

b.

us­ing flat rate meth­ods with flat rates laid down by the FTA;

c.

based on own cal­cu­la­tions.

(Art. 30 VAT Act)

The FTA lays down flat rates in par­tic­u­lar for:

a.

busi­nesses of banks;

b.

the busi­ness of in­sur­ance com­pan­ies;

c.

busi­nesses of spe­cially fin­anced agen­cies of pub­lic au­thor­it­ies;

d.

the grant­ing of loans and for in­terest in­come and in­come from trad­ing in se­cur­it­ies;

e.

the man­age­ment of owned im­mov­able prop­erty where tax­a­tion is not op­ted for un­der Art­icle 22 VAT Act;

f.

pub­lic trans­port busi­nesses.

(Art. 30 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 30 VAT Act)

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

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

(Art. 31 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

(Art. 31 para. 3 VAT Act)

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

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

(Art. 31 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 32 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

(Art. 32 para. 2 VAT Act)

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

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

(Art. 32 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

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

a.

may re­port us­ing the flat tax rate meth­od un­der Art­icle 37 para­graph 5 VAT Act;

b.

use the move­ment pro­ced­ure un­der Art­icle 63 VAT Act;

c.

use group tax­a­tion un­der Art­icle 13 VAT Act;

d.

have their place of busi­ness or a per­man­ent es­tab­lish­ment in the val­ley areas of Sam­naun or Sam­puoir;

e.⁵⁸

gen­er­ate more than 50 per cent of their turnovers from tax­able sup­plies to an­oth­er tax­able per­son who re­ports us­ing the ef­fect­ive meth­od where the per­sons in­volved are un­der the same man­age­ment;

f.⁵⁹

make sup­plies on Swiss ter­rit­ory based on Art­icle 7 para­graph 3 VAT Act.

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

a.

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

b.

if a change is made from col­lec­ted to agreed con­sid­er­a­tions, the FTA shall charge the tax on the debt­or items ex­ist­ing on the date of change at the ap­pro­pri­ate stat­utory tax rate and at the same time cred­it the in­put tax on the cred­it­or items.

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

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

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

a.

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

b.

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

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

a.

the good was pur­chased, con­struc­ted or con­ver­ted by the tax­able per­son when it used the ef­fect­ive meth­od and it has claimed the in­put tax de­duc­tion;

b.⁶⁵

the good was pur­chased by the tax­able per­son un­der the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure from a tax­able per­son re­port­ing us­ing the ef­fect­ive meth­od.

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

a.

if the seller re­ports un­der the net tax rate meth­od, no cor­rec­tions are made;

b.

if the seller re­ports un­der the ef­fect­ive meth­od, on that part of the as­sets taken over which is used in fu­ture for a busi­ness activ­ity not en­titling him to de­duct the in­put tax, own use with­in the mean­ing of Art­icle 31 VAT Act must be re­por­ted tak­ing in­to con­sid­er­a­tion Art­icle 38 para­graph 4 VAT Act.

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

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

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

a.

it car­ries on two or more busi­ness activ­it­ies for which the net tax rates laid down by the FTA dif­fer; and

b.⁶⁷

at least two of these busi­ness activ­it­ies each has a share of more than 10 per cent of the total turnover from tax­able sup­plies.

² The 10 per cent threshold is cal­cu­lated:

a.

for per­sons who be­come newly tax­able and for tax­able per­sons who take up a new busi­ness activ­ity: based on the ex­pec­ted turnovers;

b.

for the oth­er tax­able per­sons: based on the turnover of the two pre­ced­ing tax peri­ods.

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

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

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

a.

the highest of the net tax rates that are laid down for the busi­ness activ­it­ies whose share in the total turnover is more than 10 per cent;

b.

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

a.

at the high­er ap­proved net tax rate if the net tax rate laid down for the busi­ness activ­ity in ques­tion lies above the lower ap­proved rate;

b.

at the lower ap­proved rate in the oth­er cases.

² In cases un­der Art­icle 19 para­graph 2 VAT Act, the en­tire con­sid­er­a­tion may be re­por­ted at the ap­proved net rate tax ap­plic­able to the ma­jor­ity of the sup­ply. However, if the sup­plies are all sub­ject to the same tax rate un­der Art­icle 25 VAT Act, the en­tire con­sid­er­a­tion must be re­por­ted at the high­er ap­proved net rate tax un­less the tax­able per­son can show which parts of the con­sid­er­a­tion ap­ply to the in­di­vidu­al sup­plies.⁶⁸

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

² The FTA shall lay down in an or­din­ance:

a.

the net tax rate ap­plic­able to each mixed branch of the in­dustry;

b.

the usu­al main and an­cil­lary busi­ness activ­it­ies in the mixed branch of the in­dustry.

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

⁴ The 50 per cent threshold is cal­cu­lated:

a.

for per­sons who be­come newly tax­able and for tax­able per­sons, who take up a new busi­ness: based on the ex­pec­ted turnovers;

b.

for the oth­er tax­able per­sons: based on the turnover in the two pre­ced­ing tax peri­ods.

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

a.

sup­plies of goods abroad, if the goods are self-man­u­fac­tured or pur­chased with VAT be­ing charged;

b.

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

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

a.

that the tax­able per­son has ac­cep­ted un­der the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure from a per­son re­port­ing us­ing the ef­fect­ive meth­od;

b.

that the tax­able per­son knows or should have known were im­por­ted ex­empt from the tax;

c.

that the tax­able per­son ac­quired ex­empt from the tax on Swiss ter­rit­ory; or

d.

that the tax­able per­son ac­cep­ted as part of a claim set­tle­ment, provided the pay­ments made ex­ceed the ac­tu­al value of the good at the time of ac­cept­ance.⁷¹

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

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

a.

the good was pur­chased, con­struc­ted or con­ver­ted by the tax­able per­son when the per­son used the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od and claimed the in­put tax de­duc­tion;

b.⁷⁴

the good was pur­chased by the tax­able per­son un­der the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure from a tax­able per­son ap­ply­ing the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od.

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)⁷⁵

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

a. and b.⁷⁶

...

c.⁷⁷

goods and ser­vices are re­por­ted us­ing the ap­proved net tax rate at a value equal to the con­sid­er­a­tion paid, but at least at the amount that would be agreed between in­de­pend­ent third parties;

d.

if re­port­ing is done us­ing two net tax rates and the sup­ply can­not be al­loc­ated to a busi­ness activ­ity, the high­er rate is used.

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

a.

goods giv­en and ser­vices sup­plied for con­sid­er­a­tion to em­ploy­ees are re­por­ted at the ap­proved net tax rate;

b.

if re­port­ing is done us­ing two net tax rates and the sup­ply can­not be al­loc­ated to a busi­ness activ­ity, the high­er rate is used.

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

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 37 para. 1–4 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 37 para. 5 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

(Art. 37 para. 5 VAT Act)

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

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

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

(Art. 37 para. 5 VAT Act)

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

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

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

(Art. 37 para. 5 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 37 para. 5 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 38 para. 1 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 38 para. 1 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 38 para. 1 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 38 para. 2 VAT Act)

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

a.

on the trans­fer of im­mov­able prop­erty or parts of im­mov­able prop­erty;

b.

on ap­plic­a­tion of the trans­fer­ring per­son, if there are ma­ter­i­al in­terests.

(Art. 38 para. 4 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 39 VAT Act)

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

a.

re­port the tax on the debt­or items ex­ist­ing at the time of change; and

b.

de­duct the in­put taxes on the cred­it­or items ex­ist­ing at the time of change in con­nec­tion with the busi­ness activ­it­ies en­titling the in­put tax de­duc­tion.

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

a.

de­duct the debt­or items ex­ist­ing at the time of change from the con­sid­er­a­tions col­lec­ted in this re­port­ing peri­od; and

b.

de­duct the in­put taxes on the cred­it­or items ex­ist­ing at the time of the change from the in­put taxes paid in this re­port­ing peri­od.

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

(Art. 39 VAT Act)⁸⁶

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

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

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

(Art. 44 para. 2 VAT Act)

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

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

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

a.

can­not be pur­chased against pay­ment of a con­sid­er­a­tion known at the time of im­port; and

b.

can­not be used con­trac­tu­ally against pay­ment of a non-re­cur­ring li­cence fee known at the time of im­port.

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

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

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

a.

plans, draw­ings and il­lus­tra­tions, in par­tic­u­lar by ar­chi­tects, en­gin­eers, graph­ic artists and de­sign­ers;

b.

leg­al opin­ions from law­yers, re­ports from ex­perts, trans­la­tions, re­search and test res­ults and res­ults of ana­lyses, valu­ations and sim­il­ar;

c.

cer­ti­fic­ated rights and in­tel­lec­tu­al prop­erty.

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

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

² The cost cal­cu­la­tion must show:

a.

the dir­ect costs of the in­di­vidu­al sup­plies;

b.

the total con­sid­er­a­tion.

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

⁴ The Fed­er­al Of­fice for Cus­toms and Bor­der Se­cur­ity (FO­CBS)⁸⁹ may from case to case de­mand fur­ther doc­u­ment­a­tion in or­der to re­view the cal­cu­la­tion.

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

Ex­empt from the im­port tax are:

a.

goods for heads of state and for dip­lo­mat­ic, con­su­lar and in­ter­na­tion­al or­gan­isa­tions and their mem­bers which are duty free un­der Art­icle 6 of the Cus­toms Or­din­ance dated 1 Novem­ber 2006⁹⁰ (CustO);

b.

coffins, urns and re­lated dec­or­a­tion that are duty free un­der Art­icle 7 CustO;

c.

prizes, memen­tos and gifts that are duty free un­der Art­icle 8 CustO;

d.

res­taur­ant car in­vent­or­ies that are tax free un­der Art­icle 10 CustO;

e.

in­vent­or­ies, spare parts and equip­ment on ships that are duty free un­der Art­icle 11 CustO;

f.

in­vent­or­ies, spare parts and equip­ment on air­craft that are duty free un­der Art­icle 12 CustO;

g.

gold coins and fine gold un­der Art­icle 44.

(Art. 56 para. 3 VAT Act)

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

a.

at least 20 per cent of the tax ac­crued with­in a peri­od of 60 days, provided the im­port­er is re­gistered with the FTA as a tax­able per­son and the con­di­tions of the CSP are ob­served;

b.

100 per cent of the tax ac­crued with­in a peri­od of 60 days if the im­port­er is not re­gistered with the FTA as a tax­able per­son or the con­di­tions of the CSP are not ob­served.

(Art. 56 para. 3 VAT Act)

¹ The amount of the se­cur­ity for con­di­tion­al tax claims or in cases, in which pay­ment re­liefs un­der Art­icle 76 para­graph 1 CustA⁹¹ are gran­ted:

a.

100 per cent on stor­age of bulk goods;

a^bis.⁹²

a max­im­um of 10 per cent for the au­thor­ised eco­nom­ic op­er­at­or (AEO) un­der Art­icle 42a CustA;

b.

at least 25 per cent in oth­er cases.

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

(Art. 56 para. 5 VAT Act)

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

a.

be­gin­ning and end date of the peri­od for which the con­sid­er­a­tions are sub­sequently ad­jus­ted;

b.

the con­sid­er­a­tions cal­cu­lated in this peri­od;

c.

the total of the ad­just­ments of the con­sid­er­a­tions;

d.

the al­loc­a­tion of the ad­just­ment of the con­sid­er­a­tions to the vari­ous tax rates.

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

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

(Art. 63 VAT Act)

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

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

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

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

(Art. 63 VAT Act)

¹ Au­thor­isa­tion is gran­ted if the tax­able per­son:

a.

re­ports the VAT un­der the ef­fect­ive meth­od;

b.

reg­u­larly im­ports and ex­ports goods as part of its busi­ness activ­it­ies;

c.

keeps a de­tailed im­port, in­vent­ory and ex­port con­trol for these goods;

d.⁹³

in its peri­od­ic tax re­turns with the FTA reg­u­larly re­ports in­put tax sur­pluses on im­ports and ex­ports of goods un­der let­ter b of more than 10,000 francs per year that arise from the pay­ment of im­port tax to the FO­CBS; and

e.

guar­an­tees the cor­rect func­tion­ing of the pro­ced­ure.

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

(Art. 63 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 63 VAT Act)

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

(Art. 63 para. 2 VAT Act)

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

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

(Art. 70 para. 4 VAT Act)⁹⁷

Art­icles 957–958f of the Code of Ob­lig­a­tions⁹⁸ and the Ac­counts Or­din­ance of 24 April 2002⁹⁹ ap­ply to the trans­mis­sion and re­ten­tion of pa­per­less re­ceipts.

(Art. 65a VAT Act)

Re­gis­tra­tion as a tax­able per­son (Art. 66 para. 1 VAT Act), fil­ing re­turns (Art. 71 VAT Act) and the cor­rec­tion of er­rors in re­turns (Art. 72 VAT Act) must be car­ried out elec­tron­ic­ally us­ing the portal provided.

(Art. 71 and 72 VAT Act)

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

a.

the total of all con­sid­er­a­tions sub­ject to Swiss tax; this in­cludes in par­tic­u­lar the con­sid­er­a­tions for:

1.

taxed sup­plies, clas­si­fied by tax rates,

2.

sup­plies that are taxed vol­un­tar­ily un­der Art­icle 22 VAT Act (Op­tion),

3.

sup­plies that are ex­empt from the tax un­der Art­icle 23 VAT Act,

4.

sup­plies to be­ne­fi­ciar­ies un­der Art­icle 2 HSA¹⁰² that are ex­empt from the VAT un­der Art­icle 143 of this Or­din­ance,

5.

sup­plies for which the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure un­der Art­icle 38 VAT Act was used,

6.

sup­plies that are ex­empt from tax without cred­it un­der Art­icle 21 VAT Act;

b.

abate­ments of the con­sid­er­a­tion when re­port­ing un­der agreed con­sid­er­a­tions, to the ex­tent they are not taken in­to con­sid­er­a­tion in an­oth­er field;

c.

the fol­low­ing, which do not fall with­in the scope of VAT:

1.

con­sid­er­a­tions from sup­plies, whose place of sup­ply lies abroad un­der Art­icles 7 and 8 VAT Act,

2.

flows of funds not qual­i­fy­ing as con­sid­er­a­tions un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let. a–c VAT Act,

3.

oth­er flows of funds not qual­i­fy­ing as con­sid­er­a­tions un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let. d–l VAT Act;

d.

the total of the con­sid­er­a­tions for sup­plies sub­ject to the ac­quis­i­tion tax, clas­si­fied by tax rates;

e.

the total of all de­duct­ible in­put taxes be­fore cor­rec­tions and re­duc­tions un­der let­ter f, clas­si­fied in­to:

1.

in­put tax on cost of ma­ter­i­als and ser­vices,

2.

in­put tax on in­vest­ments and oth­er op­er­at­ing costs,

3.

de-tax­a­tion;

f.

the amounts by which the in­put tax de­duc­tion must be cor­rec­ted or re­duced as a res­ult of:

1.

mixed use un­der Art­icle 30 VAT Act,

2.

own use un­der Art­icle 31 VAT Act,

3.

re­ceipt of flows of funds that do not con­sti­tute con­sid­er­a­tions un­der Art­icle 33 para­graph 2 VAT Act;

g.

the total of the im­port tax re­por­ted un­der the trans­fer pro­ced­ure.

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

(Art. 71 and 72 VAT Act)

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

a.

the total of all con­sid­er­a­tions sub­ject to Swiss tax; this in­cludes in par­tic­u­lar the con­sid­er­a­tions for:

1.

taxed sup­plies, clas­si­fied by net tax rates or flat tax rates,

2.

sup­plies that are ex­empt from the tax un­der Art­icle 23 VAT Act,

3.

sup­plies to be­ne­fi­ciar­ies un­der Art­icle 2 HSA¹⁰³ that are ex­empt from VAT un­der Art­icle 143 of this Or­din­ance,

4.

sup­plies for which the no­ti­fic­a­tion pro­ced­ure un­der Art­icle 38 VAT Act was used,

5.

sup­plies that are ex­empt from the tax without cred­it un­der Art­icle 21 VAT Act;

b.

abate­ments of the con­sid­er­a­tion when re­port­ing un­der agreed con­sid­er­a­tions, to the ex­tent they are not taken in­to con­sid­er­a­tion in an­oth­er field;

c.

the fol­low­ing, which do not fall with­in the scope of VAT:

1.

con­sid­er­a­tions from sup­plies, whose place of sup­ply lies abroad un­der Art­icles 7 and 8 VAT Act,

2.

flows of funds not qual­i­fy­ing as con­sid­er­a­tions un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let­ters a–c VAT Act,

3.

oth­er flows of funds not qual­i­fy­ing as con­sid­er­a­tions un­der Art­icle 18 para­graph 2 let­ters d–l VAT Act;

d.

the total of the con­sid­er­a­tions for sup­plies sub­ject to the ac­quis­i­tion tax clas­si­fied by tax rates;

e.

tax com­pens­a­tions arising from the use of a spe­cial pro­ced­ure made avail­able by the FTA un­der Art­icle 90 para­graphs 1 and 2;

f.

the fair value of the im­mov­able goods un­der Art­icle 93 that are no longer used for busi­ness pur­poses or are newly used for a busi­ness activ­ity ex­empt from the tax without cred­it un­der Art­icle 21 para­graph 2 VAT Act.

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

(Art. 71 and 72 VAT Act)

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

a.

a sum­mary of the de­tails men­tioned in Art­icle 126 or 127 for the en­tire tax peri­od (de­clar­a­tion for the tax peri­od);

b.

the duly signed an­nu­al ac­counts or, if the tax­able per­son is not re­quired to keep books of ac­count, a sched­ule of the re­ceipts and ex­pendit­ures as well as of the as­sets of the busi­ness at the be­gin­ning and end of the tax peri­od;

c.

the audit re­port, if one must be is­sued for the tax­able per­son;

d.

a turnover re­con­cili­ation un­der para­graph 2;

e.

for tax­able per­sons who re­port us­ing the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od, an in­put tax re­con­cili­ation un­der para­graph 3;

f.

for tax­able per­sons who re­port us­ing the ef­fect­ive re­port­ing meth­od, a sched­ule show­ing the cal­cu­la­tion of the in­put tax cor­rec­tions and re­duc­tions un­der­taken, from which the in­put tax cor­rec­tions un­der Art­icle 30 VAT Act, the own use cases un­der Art­icle 31 VAT Act and the in­put tax re­duc­tions un­der Art­icle 33 para­graph 2 VAT Act is ap­par­ent.

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

a.

the op­er­at­ing turnover re­por­ted in the ac­counts;

b.

the rev­en­ues booked on ex­pense ac­counts (ex­pense re­duc­tions);

c.

the charges with­in a group of com­pan­ies that are not in­cluded in the op­er­at­ing turnover;

d.

the sales of equip­ment;

e.

the ad­vance pay­ments;

f.

the oth­er re­ceipts that are not in­cluded in the op­er­at­ing turnover;

g.

the pay­ments in kind;

h.

the re­duc­tions in earn­ings;

i.

the bad debts; and

j.

the clos­ing entries, such as peri­od­ic ac­cru­als and de­fer­rals, the pro­vi­sions and in­tern­al re-book­ings that are not turnover rel­ev­ant.

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

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

(Art. 72 VAT Act)

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

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

a.

have been en­trus­ted to the per­son ob­liged to provide in­form­a­tion in or­der to make the sup­ply;

b.

the per­son ob­liged to provide in­form­a­tion has pre­pared him­self in or­der to make the sup­ply.

(Art. 76 para. 1 VAT Act)

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

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

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

(Art. 76 para. 2 VAT Act)¹⁰⁶

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

² The FTA may com­pile and store data that it it­self col­lects or con­sol­id­ates or re­ceives from per­sons in­volved in pro­ced­ures, third parties or au­thor­it­ies elec­tron­ic­ally or in an­oth­er form.¹⁰⁷

³ ...¹⁰⁸

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

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

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

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

a.

in­form­a­tion about the iden­tity of per­sons: in par­tic­u­lar names, leg­al form, entry in the com­mer­cial re­gistry, date of birth or date of found­a­tion, ad­dress, place of res­id­ence and of busi­ness, tele­com­mu­nic­a­tion num­bers, email ad­dress, place of ori­gin, bank ac­count, leg­al rep­res­ent­at­ive, OASI num­ber¹¹¹;

b.

in­form­a­tion about eco­nom­ic activ­it­ies: nature of the busi­ness activ­ity, turnovers achieved or an­ti­cip­ated, date of re­gis­tra­tion or de­le­tion, place of the pro­vi­sion of sup­plies and in­form­a­tion about the dis­patch, im­port and ex­port of goods that is re­quired for the im­pos­i­tion of VAT;

c.

in­form­a­tion about in­come and fin­an­cial cir­cum­stances: in par­tic­u­lar in­form­a­tion from busi­ness re­cords, op­er­a­tion­al fig­ures, prop­er­ties, cash, postal and bank ac­counts, se­cur­it­ies and oth­er move­able valu­ables, and un­dis­trib­uted in­her­ited as­sets;

d.

in­form­a­tion about tax af­fairs: tax re­turns;

e.

in­form­a­tion about debts and claim as­sign­ments: peri­od and amount of claim as­sign­ments, amount of tax­able as­signed claims;

f.

in­form­a­tion about debt en­force­ment, bank­ruptcy and at­tach­ment pro­ceed­ings: debt en­force­ment, bank­ruptcy, com­pos­i­tion and at­tach­ment pro­ceed­ings, ju­di­cial and non-ju­di­cial acts in re­la­tion to the ex­er­cise of rights;

g.

in­form­a­tion about com­pli­ance with tax ob­lig­a­tions: com­pli­ance with ob­lig­a­tions to co­oper­ate on tax mat­ters, pay­ment on time of taxes due, ac­count­ing ob­lig­a­tions, find­ings made in the course of audits, and in­form­a­tion re­quired for en­sur­ing the col­lec­tion of the taxes due by tax pay­ers and jointly and sev­er­ally li­able per­sons;

h.

in­form­a­tion about any sus­pi­cion of vi­ol­a­tions, about of­fences, seized goods and evid­ence and about crim­in­al pro­ceed­ings: jus­ti­fied sus­pi­cion of vi­ol­a­tions, seized goods and evid­ence, of­fences and the res­ult­ing sanc­tions and ad­di­tion­al tax claims un­der Art­icle 12 of the Fed­er­al Act of 22 March 1974¹¹² on Ad­min­is­trat­ive Crim­in­al Law;

i.

in­form­a­tion about ad­min­is­trat­ive pro­ceed­ings: data on ad­min­is­trat­ive and tax-re­lated ju­di­cial pro­ceed­ings re­quired for the is­sue of as­sess­ment no­tices and for the as­sess­ment of rights to tax re­funds and ap­plic­a­tions for tax waivers;

j.

in­form­a­tion about ad­min­is­trat­ive and mu­tu­al as­sist­ance pro­ceed­ings: re­quest­ing au­thor­ity, date and sub­ject mat­ter of the ap­plic­a­tion, per­sons con­cerned, out­come of the pro­ced­ure and the nature of the meas­ures.

(Art. 76 para. 2 VAT Act)

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

² It may dis­close data to the fed­er­al and can­ton­al au­thor­it­ies and oth­er in­ter­ested per­sons for stat­ist­ic­al pur­poses, provided they are an­onymised and per­mit no in­fer­ences as to the per­sons in ques­tion. Art­icle 10 para­graphs 4 and 5 of the Fed­er­al Stat­ist­ics Act of 9 Oc­to­ber 1992¹¹⁴ and Art­icle 14 para­graph 3 of the Na­tion­al Bank Act of 3 Oc­to­ber 2003¹¹⁵ are re­served.¹¹⁶

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

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

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

(Art. 76b para. 2 VAT Act)

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

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

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

² Pri­or to des­troy the data shall be offered to the Fed­er­al Archives in ac­cord­ance with the Archiv­ing Act of 26 June 1998¹²⁰ for archiv­ing.

(Art. 76d VAT Act)

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

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

A de­mand for com­pre­hens­ive doc­u­ment­a­tion is deemed to have been made if a de­mand for the books of ac­count for a fin­an­cial year is made with or without the re­lated book­ing re­ceipts.