Question for ZuWo, regarding Switzerland

[Tender Branson]

Do you think the Swiss voters will back this in their November referendum ?

https://www.friedlnews.com/article/switzerland-austrian-tax-deal-will-withstand

The German deal would probably fail I guess, but the Austrian deal will probably be accepted by the electorate, right ?

[ZuWo]

I must admit that I have not informed myself very thoroughly about the content of these tax deals yet but I will certainly do that once I will receive my ballot by mail. But from my gut feeling I also think that the tax deal with Austria and the UK are more likely to pass than the tax deal with Germany. While most Swiss voters know that some of the practices of the Swiss banks in the past were illegal, many people are fed up with the aggressive rhetoric of the German SPD (notably with some comments by Sigmar Gabriel and Peer Steinbrück) and the highly problematic purchase of stolen bank details by the German state North-Rhine Westphalia.

[Tender Branson]

I must admit that I have not informed myself very thoroughly about the content of these tax deals yet but I will certainly do that once I will receive my ballot by mail. But from my gut feeling I also think that the tax deal with Austria and the UK are more likely to pass than the tax deal with Germany. While most Swiss voters know that some of the practices of the Swiss banks in the past were illegal, many people are fed up with the aggressive rhetoric of the German SPD (notably with some comments by Sigmar Gabriel and Peer Steinbrück) and the highly problematic purchase of stolen bank details by the German state North-Rhine Westphalia.

How is it anyway ? Are you voting on all 3 deals in 1 referendum in November ? Or is it unclear still, because the signatures are not yet collected ?

[ZuWo]

Each tax deal will be voted on separately - if enough signatures for a referendum can be collected until September 27 (50000 signatures are necessary for each tax deal). So it's very well possible that the tax deals with the UK and Austria get the support of the majority of the Swiss electorate come November but the German tax deal fails.

Interestingly, both socialists and members of the SVP and other right-wing parties are opposed to the tax deals though they refuse to work with each other.

Here's the petition form of the AUNS (a formally non-partisan political group for the independence of Switzerland):

http://www.referendum.ch/download/unterschriftenbogen_referendum_steuern.pdf

And this is the petition form of the JUSO (the young socialists):

http://www.juso.ch/files/u787/ref_a4_juso_d_web_ps_100712.pdf

[MaxQue]

Two questions.
The goal of the referendum is to force the government to reject it, or to force the government to accept it?
The rejection of them would be YES or NO on the ballot?

[ZuWo]

Two questions.
The goal of the referendum is to force the government to reject it, or to force the government to accept it?
The rejection of them would be YES or NO on the ballot?

The primary goal of the referendum is to let the people have the final say on the tax deals, with the ultimate goal being that the tax deals will be rejected.

In order to avoid the kind of confusion you mentioned, the questions on the ballot will fortunately be presented in the most straightforward way possible, probably like this:

- Do you approve of the tax deal with Germany/Austria/the UK (each question will be asked separately)?

A YES vote means you approve of the tax deal in question, a NO vote means the opposite.

[minionofmidas]

The Thieves' Amnesty is probably going to end up going down in flame on this side as well.

[Tender Branson]

ZuWo, are there already any polls out regarding the tax initiative ?

[ZuWo]

There aren't any representative and reliable polls at the moment - polling on initiatives is relatively rare in Switzerland anyway. I still think that the Austrian and the Britain tax deals will pass but the deal with Germany doesn't seem to have a lot of chances of being passed. Interestingly, it's Germany which causes is the problem at the moment even though it's the German states (especially some of the SPD-governed states like Northrhine-Westphalia) which desperately need the money which they could get with this tax deal.

[Tender Branson]

Each tax deal will be voted on separately - if enough signatures for a referendum can be collected until September 27 (50000 signatures are necessary for each tax deal).

So it's very well possible that the tax deals with the UK and Austria get the support of the majority of the Swiss electorate come November but the German tax deal fails.

Is there a Zwischenstand somewhere about how much signatures have been collected so far for each country's proposal ?

[Tender Branson]

The "Presse" reports that the AUNS has received more than the necessary 50.000 signatures for the Austrian and German tax deals (no word on signatures for the UK tax deal):

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http://diepresse.com/home/wirtschaft/international/1293794/Schweiz_Volksabstimmung-ueber-Steuerabkommen

51.400 people have signed a petition for the Swiss/Austrian tax deal and 52.400 people have signed the Swiss/German deal. The signatures have to be checked now if they are valid. If more than 50.000 are valid, there will be 3 joint referendums for each country on November 25.

[Tender Branson]

Looks like the Austrian referendum will not take place after all (because either not enough signatures have been collected, or just slightly more than 50.000 have been collcted but some of them are invalid):

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Excellent. Which would mean 1 billion € more for our budget in 2013.