Tax cuts due for Canadian pensioners in Switzerland
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Canada and Switzerland Friday 22 October signed an amended double taxation treaty that is expected to go into effect in 2012 as well as an expanded version of their 1975 bilateral aviation agreement. The accords were signed as part of the official visit by Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper to Swiss President Doris Leuthard Friday, near Bern.
Harper is one of nearly 70 top officials and heads of state visiting Switzerland for the Francophonie Summit that officially starts Saturday 23 October. Canada has chaired the summit and tomorrow it hands that role over to Switzerland.
The amended double taxation agreement, like others that Switzerland has signed in recent months, contains provisions for the exchange of information that are in line with OECD standards laid out in 2009 and affect primarily requests for judicial assistance in suspected tax fraud cases.
But for anyone living in Switzerland who receives a Canadian pension, whether they are Canadian, Swiss who worked in Canada or other citizens who at some point earned a Canadian pension, the revised treaty brings a tax cut.
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Swiss bank UBS will be billed an estimated CHF40 million by the Swiss government for the cost of providing help to US judicial authorities based on two requests, the Federal Council announced Wednesday afternoon 28 April. The government earlier this year said it would bill the bank CHF1 million but today it said that its expenses would amount to CHF40m and “the particular circumstances leading to both administrative assistance requests from the Internal Revenue Service (IRS) on account of the conduct of UBS in the United States justify billing the costs incurred to UBS.”
Swiss parliament in session Photo®Swiss parliament
The requests for help were made in July 2008 and August 2009 and are part of the search by US tax authorities for information on fraud-related bank accounts held at UBS. The August 2009 request led to the treaty signed between the two countries where Switzerland agrees to review 4,450 bank accounts by August 2010. The treaty will soon be debated by parliament, which must ratify it for it to be signed.
Swiss law does not have any provision for a bank or other financial institution to be billed for costs when requests for assistance are made, so the Federal Council has prepared a draft resolution for the parliament that covers only this case and only UBS.
Background, GenevaLunch
Hans-Rudolf Merz
Update 18:00 Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – France says it did not break any French laws in accepting stolen data from a Swiss branch of HSBC, and right-wing politicians in Paris called for Switzerland to be put onto an OECD black list of tax havens if the Swiss refuse to ratify a pending treaty with France over the theft. Switzerland says that France, in failing to provide judicial assistance in the matter, is not respecting the terms or spirit of the treaty.
The Swiss government late Wednesday 16 December said it intends to suspend the ratification of the new double taxation treaty with France. The news followed comments to the media by France’s budget minister, Eric Woerth, that he plans to start judicial proceedings based on information stolen from the Geneva branch of HSBC.
Swiss President Hans-Rudolf Merz says that he is asking the Swiss commission in charge of the ratification process, scheduled to meet in February, to hold off until the circumstances surrounding the theft, which took place in Switzerland, are clearer. The French citizen who stole the data has come forward publicly, and he is now being given a new identity in the south of France.
At issue for the Swiss: France has not responded to Switzrland’s repeated requests for judicial assistance, and no information has been provided about the stolen data. The theft, which started in July 2008 by an IT employee at the bank, is illegal under Swiss law. “In a state of law, this type of theft is unacceptable,” Merz told media Wednesday.
