Corporate taxation
Switzerland is a world-leading location for multinational corporations and, with its very low profit taxes, a popular destination for profit shifting.
What it is about
Each year, Swiss corporations shift profits worth more than 100 billion dollars to the low-tax jurisdiction that is Switzerland. This boosts tax revenues in the cantons of Zug, Basel Stadt, Vaud or Geneva. In countries that cannot afford to promote aggressive tax avoidance, such revenues decline dramatically. Profits are not taxed where they were generated, but where company tax rates are the lowest.
Switzerland has reformed its corporate taxation law several times since 2016. Yet, the scope for corporations to shift profits has hardly diminished. This substantially reduces the tax base mainly of countries in the Global South. Alliance Sud is committed to ending this tax avoidance through greater transparency and better cooperation, especially with countries in the South.