WAK of the National Council for the abolition of the turnover tax and the insurance tax or reform of the withholding tax
Peter von Burg
In its media release of 5 November 2019, the National Council's WAK provided information on the parliamentary initiative on turnover tax and insurance tax, on the reform of withholding tax and on the neutrality of legal forms in corporate taxation.
The WAK of the National Council wants to abolish the turnover tax and the insurance tax in two stages (cf. the parliamentary initiative of 10 December 2009). The first draft provides for the abolition of the turnover tax on domestic securities and on foreign bonds with a residual term of less than one year, as well as the abolition of the tax on life insurance policies (total tax losses of around CHF 220 million). The second draft would abolish the turnover tax on other foreign securities (CHF 1.043 billion) and the tax on property and asset insurance (CHF 690 million). It is for the Federal Council to decide when these two bills are to enter into force.
The majority of the National Council's WAK supports the key figures that have been worked out, as well as the amendments made by the Federal Council in the area of withholding tax reform. It decided to ask the Federal Council to include two additional points in its consultation draft: For domestic natural persons with a shareholding of at least 10%, a voluntary reporting procedure is to be provided for instead of the delivery of withholding tax on dividends, and dividend distributions between corporations are to be exempt from withholding tax.
The Commission requests that the parliamentary initiative requiring that the principle of neutrality of legal form with regard to company taxation be enshrined in law should not be followed.
The press release is available here.
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