Federal Act
on International Administrative Assistance in Tax Matters
(Tax Administrative Assistance Act, TAAA)

¹ Re­quests from a for­eign state must be made in writ­ing in one of the of­fi­cial lan­guages of Switzer­land or in Eng­lish and in­clude the in­form­a­tion re­quired by the ap­plic­able agree­ment.

² If the ap­plic­able agree­ment does not spe­cify any re­quire­ments for the con­tent of a re­quest, and un­less oth­er­wise ap­par­ent from the agree­ment, the re­quest must in­clude the fol­low­ing in­form­a­tion:

a.

the iden­tity of the per­son con­cerned, whereby the per­son may be iden­ti­fied by means oth­er than his name and ad­dress;

b.

a de­scrip­tion of the in­form­a­tion re­ques­ted and the form in which the re­quest­ing state wishes to re­ceive this in­form­a­tion;

c.

the tax pur­pose for which the in­form­a­tion is re­ques­ted;

d.

the grounds for pre­sum­ing that the in­form­a­tion re­ques­ted is in the re­ques­ted state or is in the pos­ses­sion of or un­der the con­trol of an in­form­a­tion hold­er res­id­ent in the re­ques­ted state;

e.

the name and ad­dress of the pre­sumed in­form­a­tion hold­er, if known;

f.

a de­clar­a­tion that the re­quest com­plies with the leg­al and reg­u­lat­ory re­quire­ments and the ad­min­is­trat­ive prac­tices of the re­quest­ing state, such that the re­quest­ing au­thor­ity would be en­titled to re­ceive the in­form­a­tion in ap­plic­a­tion of its law or with­in the scope of its nor­mal ad­min­is­trat­ive prac­tices if the in­form­a­tion was un­der its jur­is­dic­tion;

g.

a de­clar­a­tion that the re­quest­ing state has ex­hausted all reg­u­lar sources of in­form­a­tion avail­able un­der its do­mest­ic tax pro­ced­ure.

^2bis The Fed­er­al Coun­cil de­term­ines the re­quired con­tent of a group re­quest. ¹⁸

³ If the re­quire­ments un­der para­graphs 1 and 2 are not met, the FTA shall no­ti­fy the re­quest­ing au­thor­ity of this in writ­ing, and give it the op­por­tun­ity to sup­ple­ment its re­quest in writ­ing.¹⁹