Dismissal of the appeal against the taxation of the lump-sum payment as regular income

Facts

The appellant [A.] was employed by [B. AG] from 1 April 1973 to 30 September 2009. In June 2009, the employment relationship was terminated by mutual agreement, with the employer [A.] paying a lump-sum payment of gross CHF 2 million. The tax authorities treated this lump-sum payment as regular income and assessed [A.] accordingly. [A.] appealed against this and demanded privileged taxation of the lump-sum payment as a retirement lump-sum.

Considerations

The Federal Supreme Court dismissed the appeal. It concluded that the CHF 2 million lump-sum payment did not have a predominant pension character and therefore could not be taxed at the privileged rate for pension capital under Art. 38 DFTA and Art. 44 StA/BE. The decisive factor was that the lump-sum payment had already…