Final Withholding Tax (FWHT)

FWHT – Various challenges ahead on a tight schedule

Once the Swiss-German and the Swiss-UK Tax Agreements enter into force (expected on 1 January 2013), both banks in Switzerland and the German and UK clients of Swiss banks will be facing some tough challenges. It is critical that your institute has the proper skills and operational capabilities to handle these challenges, such as dealing with the regularisation of past undeclared assets and addressing taxation correctly in the future.


What is FWHT about?


Count on us

For banks   For German and British clients of Swiss banks
  • We make sure your systems can deal with the complex new requirements by:
    • Providing calculation modules to compute one-off payments for the past and final withholding tax, including the necessary adaptation of your IT infrastructure
    • Making your systems ready for audit
    • Providing data management solutions
       
  • We help you align the affected processes by implementing:
    • Reporting requirements for tax authorities
    • Reporting requirements for individual clients
    • Regulatory changes
 
  • We help your clients identify their possible options based on their individual situation:
    • Is the client fully covered by the Swiss-German/UK Tax Agreement?
    • Which assets can be regularised anonymously?
    • Which cases can only be legalised by self-disclosure?
       
  • We advise your clients on their best option by:
    • Preparing a comparative cost calculation of the options at hand
    • Advising your clients on their best option considering all facts and individual preferences (costs, anonymity, simplicity of procedure, etc.)

 

Your benefit

PwC maintains close relationships with key stakeholders and the regulators in Switzerland, Germany and the UK. Our experience and expertise in tax matters and our IT-specific knowledge gives us the in-depth understanding of the operational implications and process changes companies will face as a result of FWHT. Thanks to our PwC network, our knowledge and experience also extends to the German FWHT and voluntary disclosures.

PwC will make sure that you have implemented all the operational capabilities to deal with the regularisation of the past and the FWHT going forward, from 1 January 2013 on.