The offence of tax fraud is committed when
submitted documents are forged or changed. Furthermore, if the balance
sheet or income statement has been forged or if e.g. revenue from a
company has not been included in the income statement.
In cases of tax fraud:
- penalty tax proceedings with supplementary taxes and fines are incurred, as with tax evasion
- criminal proceedings can lead to an entry in the criminal records file and is penalised with a conditional penalty or fine
In
cases of criminal proceedings, the inspections include all methods,
such as house searches, arrests or breaking of bank confidentiality.
Most other countries’ legislation, except for Switzerland, only include the tax offence tax fraud and not tax evasion.
In cases of tax fraud foreign countries with a double taxation agreement without administrative assistance are provided with information mostly through the tedious judicial assistance procedure.
In cases of tax fraud foreign countries with a double taxation agreement without administrative assistance are provided with information mostly through the tedious judicial assistance procedure.
In the
administrative assistance procedure countries with double taxation
agreements with administrative assistance can perform a summary
procedure. In suspicion cases the tax authorities can initiate the
procedure without requiring a court order. As of 1.1.2017 the automatic
information exchange establishes the automatic flow of data. The tax
authorities can receive tax-relevant data without having to request it
from other countries.