- The Swiss Federal Supreme Court held that the VAT option for a real estate supply under Art. 22(2)(a) VAT Act cannot be exercised if the taxable supply occurs before the seller’s VAT liability begins.
- For real estate, the decisive time is the transfer of ownership in the land register; here, that occurred on 24 November 2015, before the taxpayer was registered for VAT effective 1 January 2016.
- As a result, the sale was treated as exempt real estate supply, so input tax deduction on related services was denied.
- The court also upheld the tax authority’s position that VAT shown on the invoice for the pre-registration period was wrongly invoiced and assessable under Art. 27 VAT Act.
- The taxpayer’s appeal was dismissed, and the denial of additional input tax credits for 2015/2016-related costs was confirmed.
Source: search.bger.ch
Note that this post was (partially) written with the help of AI. It is always useful to review the original source material, and where needed to obtain (local) advice from a specialist.
