This year, the Swiss Federal Council informed about its intentions to reform the Swiss withholding tax system. The need for such a reform is two-fold: Firstly, the reform aims at strengthening the Swiss debt capital market. Secondly, it strives to increase tax honesty of Swiss resident individual investors.
The key parameters established by the Swiss Federal Council in its 1.5-page communication partially piggyback on the ideas presented in an expert board’s report early this year, which was discussed in a prior blog post.
The Swiss Federal Council mandated the Federal Department of Finance to prepare a consultation draft, which should be available in autumn.
The key parameters established by the Swiss Federal Council for the reform of the Swiss withholding tax system are as follows:
However, the Swiss Federal Council for fiscal reasons rejected a more comprehensive reform, which may have included a reduction of the withholding tax rate for Swiss dividends to 15%. Nevertheless, it asked the Federal Department of Finance to examine whether the Swiss equity capital market can be strengthened through amending relevant income tax rules, in particular in the area of the participation exemption.
Finally, the Swiss Federal Council also turned down the idea of abolishing the turnover tax for Swiss securities. However, it indicated that it may agree to excluding Swiss debt instruments from the turnover tax.
The withholding tax reform would significantly strengthen the position of Switzerland as an international finance and treasury center as it would allow Swiss resident entities to directly enter the debt capital markets via bond issuances without adverse withholding tax consequences. The Swiss Federal Council’s communication does not address yet many of the detailed technical aspects (e.g. in relation to indirect investments or substitute interest/dividend payments) and operational considerations (e.g. details of the paying agent system). Thus, affected parties should watch out for the consultation draft to be published in autumn to determine how they may be affected in practice and whether any lobbying efforts are needed.
