Facts
[A. AG] , acting through its statutory organs, filed a complaint against the judgment of the Administrative Court of the Canton of Bern, Administrative Law Division, Single Judge, of 28 September 2016. The subject of the proceedings were the cantonal and communal taxes 2002 as well as the direct federal tax 2002 and the associated tax fines.
[A. AG] had filed a patent application on 21 May 2002 and named [B.] as the inventor. Later, the application was transferred to [B.] , who assigned the rights to his invention to [C. GmbH] . The tax administration of the Canton of Bern initiated a tax reassessment and tax penalty procedure against [A. AG] and [B.] .
The tax administration imposed fines on [B.] for completed tax evasion and obliged [A. AG] to pay back taxes and tax fines. [A. AG] filed a complaint against the fines and the tax reassessment.
Considerations
The Federal Court examined whether the prosecution had become time-barred during the federal court proceedings. It found that the statute of limitations for prosecution in cases of completed tax evasion is ten years after the end of the tax period.
The court applied the new statute of limitations provision of Art. 184 DFTA, which is milder than the law applicable during the 2002 tax period. It concluded that the prosecution became time-barred on 1 January 2017.
The Federal Court overturned…