Modernizing the tax system

Problem

• High administrative effort Taxpayers must gather many pieces of information and documents themselves and manually record them. This costs time and increases the likelihood of errors.
• Missing support for deductions Today's system usually only points out errors to people when it would result in paying too little tax. Possible deductions or savings potentials, however, are often not actively displayed.
• Data silos and lack of connectivity Many relevant data already exist digitally with employers, banks, or insurers, but are not automatically linked to the tax system. This leads to duplicate data collection and unnecessary effort.
• The lack of transparency regarding state expenditures undermines trust in public institutions. Those who cannot understand how taxes are used accept tax decisions less and participate less informed in future democratic decisions.
• Provisional tax invoices create unnecessary administrative effort, because they are not required to be paid. Only the definitive tax invoice must be paid within 30 days.

Solution

• Employers, banks, and insurance companies should transmit tax data digitally. Authorities will only see them after confirmation of the taxpayer. This makes the tax return simpler, faster, and error‑free.
• The tax system should automatically detect possible deductions and actively point them out. This way all taxpayers are treated fairly and overlooked deductions are reduced.
• Bund, Kantone und Gemeinden sollen eine gemeinsame digitale Steuerplattform betreiben. Dadurch werden Prozesse vereinheitlicht, Doppelspurigkeiten reduziert und der Datenaustausch vereinfacht.
• Citizens should be able to view their tax data transparently at any time. Every data release to authorities should be displayed in a traceable manner.
• Uniform digital standards between cantons should simplify tax filing and reduce differences in usage.

Benefit

• Less administrative effort Automated data transmission and digital processes save time and reduce the effort for citizens and authorities.
• Fewer errors and more fairness Automatic prompts for missing information or potential deductions help avoid mistakes and ensure a fairer taxation.
• More transparency and control Taxpayers retain control over their data, as information is only forwarded to authorities after their confirmation.
• Taxpayers who can allocate their full tax contribution across budget items are happier because they only finance what makes sense to them. Taxpayers without voting rights can influence politics through the budget. Who pays decides – the people are sovereign!
• If banks are required to automatically report all accounts to the authorities, this makes tax evasion more difficult and thus leads to fairer taxation.

Public support

Total votes: 64

Breakdown: SoundsGood: 28, FullyOnBoard: 27, NothingAgainstIt: 4, Concerns: 3, NoChance: 1, NeedForDiscussion: 1

Discussion

• Kiril Bojiloff (2026-07-31): Digital interfaces, automatic transmission, and consolidation of sensitive personal data in the age of cybercrime are extremely delicate. No remedy has yet emerged against cybercrime. Neither private nor state institutions can counter it.
• ↳ Oliver Herren (2026-08-02): Die Daten werden ja schon heute digital übermittelt, der Unterschied ist einzig der Aufwand, alles selbst machen zu müssen.
• Boško Stupar (2026-07-29): The tax software already does many things well, but there are still tricky shortcuts that are very implicit. The system should be as simple as possible, or the flat rate should be pre‑filled if possible, and only overridden as needed.
• ↳ Bastian Widmer (2026-07-29): The flat-rate deductions are usually already pre-filled, and there is usually also a warning if the other deduction is accidentally selected.
• ↳ Boško Stupar (2026-07-29): @Bastian W. It's not for the interest or the costs of asset management. There is a magic number that everyone who has the skill uses. I put a lot of effort into it until I learned it.
• Bastian Widmer (2026-07-29): A fairly simple step would be to force all banks to offer the e‑tax statement free of charge. Then we wouldn't have to link banks with the state and establish a forced data exchange.
• ↳ Philippe Maurer (2026-07-29): Good point. The fact that there are still banks that don't offer this or charge for it is not really up-to-date. It would be good to put some pressure on these outsiders.
• Peter Stein (2026-07-29): Distributing part of one's own tax base—such as the proposed 10%—to one's own budget items would make me feel even more like an informed citizen. Thus, not only would my vote be valuable, but also my own value creation. Distributing the entire personal tax base across the budget items (as also suggested) makes the state unmanageable in my opinion, but arranging a certain portion yourself would be great. In my opinion, one should start an initiative on this topic.
• Christian T. (2026-06-13): Seriously, I don’t understand the problem. The tax software already points out deductions, reading documents goes super fast… sure, one could extend the principle of eVermögensausweise (aka QR Cide) also to payroll statements and 3a deductions… but that doesn’t require any coordination, let alone a legal change. The state may assume that a capable citizen will sit down to the tax software once a year for 30 minutes – and that this citizen has a receipt available.
• ↳ Nils Anderer (2026-06-28): Basically, I agree with you; that would certainly be progress, but in the end the process should run fully automated, and I only need to spend 5‑10 minutes checking the data and giving the go‑ahead so that they can be processed.
• ↳ Marco Preuss (2026-07-06): Absolutely.