(Bloomberg) — Switzerland’s finance minister said some cantons will consider lowering taxes paid by high-earners in a bid to keep the Alpine nation attractive to international business after a minimum 15% global corporate tax rate was approved.
“I could well imagine that some cantons will flatten out the tax progression a bit in order to become more attractive for high-income employees,” Ueli Maurer said in an interview with newspaper NZZ am Sonntag.
Switzerland, long attractive to multinationals in part because of low corporate taxes, said this month it would implement a minimum rate of 15% by 2024 as part of a 140-country Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development agreement.
Maurer said Switzerland’s “sustainability and technological knowhow” would also keep it competitive amid the new tax rule, but the country’s 26 cantons would decide local tax rates.
“The cantons know their companies best and know what they need. It is therefore right that they initiate targeted measures that are adapted to the respective conditions,” he said.
Pressure to harmonize global corporate tax rates will continue and Switzerland “has to follow suit, otherwise it will lose its reputation,” Maurer said.
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