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

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

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

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

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