Facts
The occasion for the proceedings was a request for administrative assistance from the Dutch tax authorities (BD) dated 23 July 2015. The BD requested information on persons who were account holders at Bank X. during the period from 1 February 2013 to 31 December 2014 and met certain criteria, but whose names were not known to the BD. The Federal Administrative Court had refused the administrative assistance, as it interpreted the Double Taxation Agreement between Switzerland and the Netherlands (DTA CH-NL) and the associated Protocol as not allowing group requests without naming individuals. The Swiss Federal Tax Administration (SFTA) then appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.Considerations
The Federal Supreme Court concluded that the DTA CH-NL, in conjunction with the Mutual Agreement on the DTA CH-NL, allows administrative assistance even without identification by name. The Mutual Agreement, which was concluded to improve the provisions of the Protocol, states that the person included can also be identified in a way other than by providing the name and address. This clearly expresses that the Contracting Parties do not consider an express mention of the name in the request for administrative assistance to be necessary. In other words, group requests without naming individuals should be permissible under the DTA CH-NL.
The Federal Supreme Court further examined whether the requirements for administrative assistance in the case of group requests were met. It concluded that the request from the BD is on the border of an inadmissible fishing expedition, but can still be considered admissible. The request contains a detailed description of the group and the…