BERN: The Swiss Federal Finance Department launched an explanatory report and a proposed legislative bill concerning some important changes of the federal withholding tax system.
At the core of the proposed reform is a system change of bond interest taxation from the present ‘debtor’ system to a ‘paying agent’ system, whereby the duty to withhold and pay tax from relevant revenues would be transferred from the Swiss issuer (‘debtor’) to the Swiss paying agent of the revenues.
The reform would be legally enacted concurrently with the new system of automatic international exchange of tax information.