National Council does not want a code of interpretation on tax self-reports
Silvia Hunziker
The National Council does not consider it necessary to know how the number of voluntary reports of tax evaders with impunity has developed since 2010. It narrowly refused by 98 votes to 93 to commission the Federal Council with a report on the matter. Even the latter would have considered it useful.
Tax evasion is not a trivial offence, said postulant Mattea Meyer (SP/ZH) in the National Council on Wednesday. 140,000 people had made use of the possibility of making a one-off voluntary declaration and legalised their untaxed money. This has brought the cantons over 44 billion francs into the coffers.
With the Automatic Exchange of Information (AIA), which Switzerland has agreed with the 28 EU member states and other countries, the Swiss tax authorities have been receiving information on the assets of Swiss taxpayers abroad since 2018.
"If the fear of the automatic exchange of information has revealed so much money - how much money would come out if banking secrecy was also lifted," she asked. Meyer suspects that money was still being smuggled past the tax authorities.
She wanted to instruct the Federal Council to show how much black money - both nationwide and broken down by canton - was uncovered. The report should also state how it is guaranteed that this possibility can only be used once.
The Federal Council, too, would have considered an interpretative regulation to be useful, as Finance Minister Ueli Maurer says. However, the National Council narrowly dropped the matter.
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