Switzerlandd attracts profits generated elsewhere

The report on Switzerland by the NGO coalition Alliance Sud emphasizes the negative spillovers of policies: “Swiss foreign economic policy and its international financial and fiscal policy are still far from taking sufficient account of the requirements of the 2030 Agenda.” After a visit to Switzerland, UN Independent Expert on foreign debt and other financial obligations Juan-Pablo Bohoslavsky drew attention in a report to the Human Rights Council to deficiencies in the prevention of unfair financial flows and problems in the area of international corporate taxation: “The existing Swiss tax privileges for the foreign profits of multinational corporations ... create massive incentives for profit transfers to Switzerland and help to deprive developing countries of potential tax revenues in the hundreds of billions.”

Alliance Sud observes that “in the planned Swiss corporate tax reform, the Federal Council plans to abolish the previous tax privileges, but intends to replace them with measures that will ultimately have the same effect: for multinational corporations it will remain attractive for tax purposes to transfer profits from abroad - not least from poorer countries - to Switzerland”.

The Swiss CSO report criticizes especially the allocation of resources at national level: “In 2017 the number of people affected by poverty in Switzerland has risen for the second year in a row and public funds in support of the poorest are being cut. This is unacceptable, given a government surplus of CHF 5 billion.”

Source: Switzerland National Report 2018.