On September 12, 2016 the Swiss Federal Court issued a press release announcing that on that same date the Court had judged that the Eidgenössische Steuerverwaltung (Swiss Federal Tax Administration) is allowed to provide administrative assistance to the Dutch tax authorities with respect to a UBS client based on a group request that did not contain the names of the taxpayers concerned. Unfortunately the judgement itself is not published yet.
According to the press release the Swiss Federal Court ruled that under the Swiss – Dutch DTA group requests not containing the names of the taxpayers concerned are permissible, provided that the group request contains sufficient (other) information to identify the taxpayers concerned.
According to the press release the Dutch tax authorities sent their request for administrative assistance in 2015. The request regards clients of the UBS Bank unknown to the Dutch tax authorities, which are clients with a home address in the Netherlands and who, despite a written invitation of the bank did not provide sufficient evidence of them being tax compliance. The Dutch tax authorities asked to be provided with the names and addresses of the UBS clients involved, as well as the numbers of their bank accounts and the balances of their bank accounts.
From the press release it seems that the Swiss Federal Court based its decision on the Swiss-Ducth DTA. According to the Swiss Federal Court an interpretation of the Swiss-Dutch DTA seems to point in the direction that it is not necessary to include names in a request for Administrative Assistance but rather that it is sufficient to include information in the request that is sufficient to identify the persons regarding which information is requested. In the press release it is added that it also follows from the purpose of the Swiss-Dutch DTA that the mentioning of names is not necessary. According to the Protocol the article on the exchange of information of the Swiss-Dutch DTA exists to “enable an exchange of information for tax matters that is as wide possible, without allowing the Contracting States to conduct "fishing expeditions"”. It is furthermore stated that the Swiss and Dutch competent authorities have agreed on this interpretation.
The press release concludes by stating that in the underlying case it is assumed that the request made by the Dutch tax authorities does not constitute an impermissible "fishing expedition" and that the other conditions for providing administrative assistance are also met.
Click here to be forwarded to the press release (in the German language) as available on the website of the Swiss Federal Court.
Click here to be forwarded to the press release (in the French language) as available on the website of the Swiss Federal Court.
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