"Colossal own goal" Zurich voters won't grant companies another tax cut

Voters in the canton of Zurich rejected a second tax cut for companies. The left-wing parties had already insinuated a "colossal own goal".

Zurich companies will not benefit from a further tax cut: voters have decided to reject the second part of the "2017 tax proposal". The decision was made with 54.5 percent voting no.

A total of 179,439 Zurich residents voted against lower taxes on profits. The turnout was 35.3 percent.

What came across as dry was highly controversial during the referendum campaign. For the SP, Greens and AL, the bill was an "affront to the population", a "tax giveaway for a few". The voters were obviously of the same opinion.

"Colossal own goal" for the conservatives

SVP Finance Director Ernst Stocker wants to prevent companies from moving to cheaper cantons. To this end, he launched the "Tax Proposal 2017" a few years ago. The first part, a reduction in the profit tax rate from eight to seven percent, is already in force. Now it was a question of a further reduction from seven to six percent.

Originally, major shareholders were supposed to be asked to pay more in return. Stocker planned to make 60 out of every 100 francs of profit distribution taxable. Previously, only 50 francs had to be taxed.

However, the FDP, SVP, Center and GLP in the cantonal council removed this compensation from the bill, which was met with harsh criticism from the left. They correctly predicted that this vote would be a "colossal own goal" for the conservatives.

Amount of tax losses unclear

How many millions of francs in tax revenue the canton and the municipalities would have lost was disputed. The calculations differed widely depending on the political camp.

The cantonal government put the losses at around CHF 40 million in the medium term, which it described as "manageable". In the longer term, it assumed that the tax cut would even have attracted new companies and investments.

The left-wing side of the Council and the cities of Winterthur and Zurich were of a completely different opinion. They feared that the "tax giveaway" would have led to losses of CHF 350 million a year. They were therefore the ones who launched a referendum against the bill.