Inheritance tax idea has low public support, survey finds

Members of the Swiss Young Socialists party (JUSO) handing in the signatures for their initiative in Bern, February 8, 2024. Keystone

Some 67% of Swiss are against a left-wing initiative to slap bigger inheritance taxes on the wealthy in order to finance climate measures, a survey has found.

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Handed in last February, the initiative calls for a 50% inheritance tax on sums of CHF50 million ($56 million) and above to finance the ecological transformation of the Swiss economy. According to calculations by its initiators – the Young Socialists (JUSO) party – this tax would raise around CHF6 billion a year. Federal and cantonal authorities could then invest this money in climate protection measures, JUSO says.

According to the representative survey by the DemoSCOPE institute, commissioned by online news site Watson and published on Thursday, 67% of those questioned said “no” to the initiative, and 6% “rather no”. Conversely, 21% said “yes” and 6% “rather yes”. Less than 1% gave no answer or said they didn’t know.

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With 74% “no” and 5% “rather no”, people in French-speaking Switzerland have a clearer opinion than those in German-speaking Switzerland (66% and 6%).

Support for the text is strongest among left-wingers. Some 56% of respondents who identify with the Social Democratic Party said “yes”, and 17% “rather yes”. At 58%, support for the initiative is also strong among Green Party supporters.

Among Liberal Green Party supporters, the “yes” is 11% and the “rather yes” 12%. For the Centre Party, the right-wing Radical Liberals and the People’s Party, less than 10% are in favour.

By age, 44% of 15-34-year-olds accept the text, with a further 8% “rather” in support. This drops to 19% and 8% for 35-54 year-olds, and for those over 55, the rejection is clear-cut at 80%.

Given that the Swiss government has already refused to draw up a counter-proposal to the idea, and that it will shortly transmit its message on the initiative to parliament, the majority of those questioned see no need for a counter-proposal either. Some 54% were satisfied with the current legal situation, 27% wanted a counter-proposal and 17% favoured the initiative.

+ From 2015: inheritance tax idea roundly rejected by voters

Another proposed reform of inheritance tax was already rejected by 71% of voters in 2015. At that time, the people’s initiative called for the introduction of a national inheritance and gift tax of 20% on sums of CHF2 million or more, with one-third of the proceeds to be allocated to the pension system and one-third to the cantons.

If the 2015 text were to be put to the vote today, it would suffer the same fate: 53% would be against it, while 37% would be in favour, according to Thursday’s poll.

The representative survey of French- and German-speaking regions in Switzerland was carried out from July 16-24. A total of 6,558 people took part. The maximum margin of error is 1.6%.

Translated from French by DeepL/dos

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