Tax & Spend
Switzerland Pushes for VAT Increase to Fund Pension Boost
- No increase of wage contributions necessary, government says
- Switzerland’s sales tax is among the lowest in Europe
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Switzerland’s government said it would favor increasing the country’s value-added tax over raising wage contributions to fund a recently decided increase in pensions.
Given a calculation error in determining the national pension fund’s deficit, an additional 3 billion francs ($3.5 billion) are available in 2033. This means that a boost of VAT is sufficient while deductions from workers’ salaries can be left unchanged, the executive said in a statement on Wednesday. A competing plan had envisioned raising both.