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

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

² The ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies of the Con­fed­er­a­tion and the autonom­ous fed­er­al or­gan­isa­tions and es­tab­lish­ments and all oth­er au­thor­it­ies of the can­tons, dis­tricts, ad­min­is­trat­ive areas and com­munes not men­tioned in para­graph 1 are ob­liged to provide in­form­a­tion to the FTA if the in­form­a­tion re­ques­ted may be of sig­ni­fic­ance for the en­force­ment of this Act and for the col­lec­tion of the tax un­der this Act or for col­lect­ing the busi­ness fee un­der the Fed­er­al Act of 24 March 2006¹⁵⁸ on Ra­dio and Tele­vi­sion; the in­form­a­tion must be provided free of charge. On re­quest, doc­u­ments must be for­war­ded to the FTA free of charge.¹⁵⁹

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

⁴ Dis­putes re­lat­ing to the ob­lig­a­tion of ad­min­is­trat­ive au­thor­it­ies of the Con­fed­er­a­tion to provide in­form­a­tion are de­cided by the Fed­er­al Coun­cil. Dis­putes re­lat­ing to the ob­lig­a­tion of au­thor­it­ies of the can­tons, dis­tricts, ad­min­is­trat­ive areas and com­munes to provide in­form­a­tion are de­cided by the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court (Art. 120 of the Fed­er­al Su­preme Court Act of 17 June 2005¹⁶⁰) if the can­ton­al gov­ern­ment has re­fused the re­quest for in­form­a­tion.

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