The Primary Incidence of Banking Secrecy and Withholding Taxes in Swiss Cantons

Swiss banking secrecy laws not only tempt foreign investors to remain silent about at least part of their capital incomes and, thus, not pay taxes as obliged by law. Therefore, Switzerland introduced a withholding tax on capital income in 1934, primarily in order to coerce domestic residents to report levels of wealth and derived incomes properly. This paper asks whether a withholding tax rate of 35 percent suffices to achieve this goal. For this purpose, marginal income tax rates are computed and income distributions are estimated for each of Switzerland's 26 cantons, distinguishing between married and unmarried tax payers. From these raw data we compute income levels and shares of tax payers for whom the withholding tax does not work as intended