Agreement withholding tax (WHT) between Switzerland and Austria, will be phased out from 1 January 2017, when the agreement between Switzerland and the EU on the automatic exchange of tax information comes into force.
11 November 2016, Switzerland and Austria signed an agreement to ensure a smooth transition between the two modes. Austrian authorities, it regulates the arrangements for the transmission of the final amount of taxes and shipping the latest voluntary agreement. “The provisions of a tax treaty withholding will be applied on all the facts and legal rights that materialize during the period of its validity,” said the Swiss Federal Council.
Withholding tax agreement between Switzerland and Austria came into force on 1 January 2013. It provided for the regularization of assets held in Switzerland Austrian taxpayers and taxation of income derived from these assets. Austrian taxpayers have been an option either to pay by WHT, imposed directly on their accounts and transferred anonymously to the Austrian authorities, or to make a voluntary disclosure.
The Swiss Federal Council said that this model is “generally loses its sense of existence with the introduction of an automatic exchange of information between Switzerland and the European Union of 1 January 2017 year.”
The agreement with the EU to replace taxation between the EU and Switzerland, the savings agreement, which has been in force since 2005. Under the deal, the parties will receive, on an annual basis, the names, addresses, tax identification numbers, and dates of birth of their residents with accounts in contracting states, along with other financial information and information about the balance on the account.