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

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

a.

their pay­ment on time ap­pears to be at risk;

b.

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

c.

the tax­able per­son is in ar­rears with pay­ment;

d.

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

e.

the tax­able per­son sub­mits re­turns that are ob­vi­ously too low.

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

a.

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

b.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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