Tax amnesty ends for undeclared EU assets

Swiss owners of property abroad had until September 30 to come forward and declare it Keystone

The automatic exchange of information between Switzerland and the European Union came into effect on Monday. Owning property abroad without declaring it will no longer be possible. 

The deadline of September 30 ended the possibility of coming forward voluntarily, reported Swiss public televisionExternal link, RTS, on Sunday. For latecomers who have assets outside Switzerland and who failed to declare them, doing so now can no longer be considered voluntary. 

In this process, the data providers are the partner states. They had until Sunday to send notifications to the Federal Tax Administration (FTA). From Monday, the FTA will make them available to the cantonal tax authorities. 

The cantons will then process the notifications and check whether the taxpayers have declared their accounts based abroad. If this is the case, there will be no consequence. In the case of shortcomings, however, individuals should expect an additional tax assessment and criminal proceedings. 

Since the implementation of a Swiss tax amnesty programme in 2010, more than 90,000 tax dodgers have voluntarily announced their untaxed wealth to authorities, swissinfo.ch reported earlier this year. The law allowed individuals to avoid paying penalties on undeclared assets if they come forward themselves, although they still must pay back taxes and interest.