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

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

a.

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

b.

by ob­tain­ing an in­cor­rect re­fund; or

c.

by ob­tain­ing an un­jus­ti­fied tax abate­ment;

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

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

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

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

a.

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

b.

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

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

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

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