Parliament wants more powers for family foundations
Published: Tuesday, Feb 27th 2024, 11:51
Updated At: Tuesday, Feb 27th 2024, 11:51
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The Swiss parliament wants to give family foundations in Switzerland more powers. In future, these should also be able to be used for estate and asset planning.
By 116 votes to 68 with 3 abstentions, the National Council approved a corresponding motion by Aargau FDP Council of States member Thierry Burkart on Tuesday. It now goes to the Federal Council for implementation, as the Council of States has already said yes to the proposal.
Burkart argued that today, according to the Civil Code, family foundations may only be used for certain purposes, such as covering the educational costs of family members.
Many Swiss families therefore turn to foreign foundations if they want to pass on an estate to descendants in a "measured" way. Burkart referred to Anglo-Saxon trusts or Liechtenstein foundations. The "outdated" Swiss ban on maintenance foundations should be lifted, he said.
The members of the SP, Green and GLP parliamentary groups voted against the motion, with some exceptions.
Introduction of trusts rejected
On Tuesday, however, the National Council rejected a parliamentary initiative to introduce trusts into the Swiss legal system. In this respect, the National Council agreed with its preliminary advisory committee, which said that it would be better to give Swiss family foundations more powers than to rely on these financial vehicles from abroad.
Family foundations are already enshrined in Swiss law. Accordingly, there is already a legal basis for the taxation of foundations. The feedback from the consultation on the Federal Council's draft for the introduction of trusts showed that the tax aspects of the proposal were controversial.
Federal Council wanted to check first
The Federal Council recommended that the initiative on the trust be written off and also recommended that the Burkart motion be rejected. However, it wrote that it was fundamentally open to the legalization of pure maintenance trusts at a later date.
However, this could only be implemented as part of a comprehensive revision of foundation law, as the ban on pure maintenance foundations could not be lifted in isolation and without further adjustments. The Federal Council would therefore have preferred a review mandate, i.e. a postulate, to a binding motion on this topic.
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