A decision by the Federal Administrative Court changes the definition of a “voucher.”
According to prior Swiss value added tax (VAT) practice, a voucher qualified as means of payment for a service or certain goods, so the sale of the voucher was not deemed to be a transaction under Swiss VAT law. Thus the tax-relevant date (giving rise to tax liability) was the date the voucher was redeemed. At this point the supplier had to charge VAT at the applicable tax rate according to the general principles of the VAT law. In other words, the sale of vouchers was not to be categorized by the issuer (or seller) because this sale was out of scope of the Swiss VAT law and the tax-relevant date was in the future at the time of the voucher’s redemption.
Source KPMG
