Facts
The case concerns [A.], the sole member of the Board of Directors of I. AG, who signed the balance sheets and profit and loss statements of the company. [S.] was a member of the Board of Directors of P. AG, a revision and fiduciary company that was the auditor of I. AG until 1966. [S.] prepared the general ledger of I. AG based on the individual entries by A.
On July 27, 1961, I. AG instructed the Swiss Bank Association to transfer an amount of CHF 20,140.-- from the construction loan "L" to the I. R. Trust in Vaduz. To justify this payment, two fictitious invoices from the I. R. Trust as well as corresponding delivery notes and cost allocations were presented to the Federal Tax Administration. [A.] and [S.] later admitted that these documents were forged in order to substantiate a payment to a person whose name could not be disclosed.
Furthermore, I. AG had written off amounts of CHF 25,000.-- and CHF 175,000.-- as losses on a loan to W. AG in its annual financial statements for 1962 and 1963, which was also not true.
Based on these facts, the tax authorities issued penalty orders against [A.] for evasion of coupon taxes and withholding taxes, and against [S.] for complicity in these offenses.
Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court first established that commercial accounting is by law and by its nature intended to prove civil law relationships, not only for tax purposes. Therefore, the forgery of documents in the accounting records is to be assessed under Art. 251 of the Swiss Criminal Code (Forgery of Documents) and not exclusively under the provisions of cantonal or federal tax criminal law.
The fact that the accounting forgeries occurred in a one-person AG and did not affect the balance sheet does not change the applicability of…