Facts
The Swiss National Accident Insurance Fund (SUVA), based in Lucerne, is a public law institution with legal personality. By authentic deed dated May 5, 2004, SUVA acquired parcels of land in the canton of Geneva. The notary public requested the State Council of the canton of Geneva to exempt the transaction from transfer taxes. However, the State Councillor in charge of the Department of Finance rejected this request, considering that Article 80(1) ATIPSA did not provide for the exemption of property taxes such as transfer taxes. SUVA and the notary then appealed this decision to the Federal Tribunal.Considerations
The Federal Tribunal dismissed the appeal. It considered that Article 80(1) ATIPSA, which uniformly regulates the tax exemption of all social insurance institutions, limits this exemption to direct taxes only. Although SUVA had previously been more broadly exempted from all taxes under the former Article 67 AAIA, the legislator had expressly decided to subject it to the general regime of Article 80(1) ATIPSA, which does not cover indirect taxes such as transfer taxes.
Furthermore, the Federal Tribunal ruled that transfer taxes constitute indirect taxes that are not within the scope of Article 80(1) ATIPSA. Therefore, the challenged decision is not…