lionel wrote:
With a VAT rate of 8% rather than about 20% in the EU, an income tax rate of 12% to 21.5%
It actually hurt reading this
I don’t think a business would move to Switzerland for the lower VAT because only end users (and only in Switzerland) pay that. There are some corporation tax incentives e.g. Vodafone transferred the IP in the 3G frequency bands (which they bought from UK Govt for about 20BN :smile) to Switzerland and the royalties get sent there, attracting a lot less tax.
I still believe that the message to business is “stay out”.
lionel wrote:
but for some business the total package is attractive
I did investigate this in the past. The bottom line is that all fixed costs like rent, staff etc. are crazy expensive but the taxes are lower. So you need a business with a small physical footprint moving large amounts of money to run well in Switzerland like FIFA, IOC, banking etc…
I see a new business opportunity for STCs bringing some jets down to 5699 kg ;-)
Careful, this are the recommendations of the commission to the lower house. If they re adopted by the latter is completely open. They are reasonable however, at least for us.
Airlines still will suffer massively and I would not rule out a meltdown if Lh looses patience
Note: Off-topic
Peter wrote:
There are some corporation tax incentives
I wonder …. I read recently that Garmin Ltd (of all companies) is incorporated in Switzerland and its principle subsidiaries are located in the United States, Taiwan, and the UK. Garmin International Inc is a subsidiary of Garmin Ltd. So it seems that Garmin in the US is a susidiary of a Swiss company. LoL 
There are some corporation tax incentives
You bet! [redacted company] moved its European HQ to Switzerland, from (I think) Netherlands, around 2006. The deal was that they had to hire a certain number of engineers in CH (ok, since this is an aviation forum, HB) in return for which they got a crazy low corporation tax rate. The deal is still in place, and they still have 200 engineers in [redacted city]. The people who actually run engineering at a corporate level don’t really know what to do with them, so they don’t have anything to do. But paying $40M or so a year to pay the engineers is a drop in the bucket compared to the savings, so the bean counters are extremely happy.
The Swiss Aero-Club has just reported that the Swiss Nationalrat Commission has removed light and sport aviation from the scope of the private flight tax, as well as school/training, factory, and working flights. Commissions do the detail reviews of laws before they are submitted to the house for discussion and voting. So now the National Council needs to vote on the revised CO2 law as submitted by the commission. If/once approved, it then goes back to the Senate to have the differences between the two house versions cleaned up.
This is excellent news, after a huge amount of lobbying. The chances of success from the point of view of GA are now much better.
Here is the Aero-Club original text in German. Google translate does a decent job.
Die vorberatende Nationalratskommission für Umwelt, Raumplanung und Energie (UREK) will im Rahmen der Vorlage zur Totalrevision des CO2-Gesetzes die Leicht- und Sportaviatik von der neuen Lenkungsabgabe (Privatflugabgabe) ausnehmen – im Gegensatz zum Ständerat, der dem Antrag Minder für die Privatflugabgabe gefolgt war. Auch Schulungsflüge sowie Werks- und Arbeitsflüge sollen nicht belastet werden.
Very clever lobbying to achieve that!
airways wrote:
lionel wrote:
With a VAT rate of 8% rather than about 20% in the EU, an income tax rate of 12% to 21.5%
It actually hurt reading this
Let me add some to your pain .
Switzerland recently reduced the VAT rate to 7.7%… and continues to pay back debt (a costly move as the interest on the Swiss Franc is actually negative).
Ah and the Swiss National Bank made a small profit of CHF 49’000’000’000 in 2019.
A couple additional details:
- The commission president (Green party!!) said that the effort to collect the tax would be disproportionate in view of the mostly small cost of such flights
- Criteria would be aircraft weight. Aircraft under 5.7t would not be subject to the tax
Here is a position paper presented to the commission by the Swiss Aero Club (AeCS):
AeCS position paper in German
AeCS position paper in French
