Efforts To Improve Swiss Finance Centre's Competitiveness Bearing Fruit

by Ulrika Lomas, for LawAndTax-News.com, Brussels

05 September 2008

At its meeting on September 2, 2008, the Swiss Financial Centre Dialogue Steering Committee approved various measures and a schedule of further work to promote the Swiss financial centre for the attention of the Strategy Committee.

According to the country's Finance Department, cooperation efforts made between the financial centre, the authorities and the government over the last six months to improve conditions and increase the competitiveness of Switzerland's financial centre are showing initial positive results.

Formed in January of this year, the Swiss Financial Centre Dialogue Steering Committee approved the first package of measures on September 2, 2008.

These measures provide clarity in the taxation of the hedge fund sector and the private equity sector and contribute to liberalising authorisation practices for investment funds. This should strengthen Switzerland's medium-term position in terms of the international competition among financial centres.

A further announcement from the department noted that the country's Federal Tax Administration is to clarify the tax-related problems linked to performance fee and carried interest, which will therefore provide the operators concerned with the legal certainty they require for tax planning, in addition to making Switzerland a more desirable investment option.

In addition to this, a permanent joint monitoring group is to be responsible for the early recognition and analysis of international regulatory developments in the financial markets to enable the authorities and the sectors concerned to react quickly to developments in foreign regulatory frameworks.

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