LDF and Swiss-UK Tax Agreement
The sources available on the Swiss-UK and especially Swiss-German tax agreement are numerous and
wide-reaching. Therefore, due to a lack of space, only the agreement itself is introduced in this thesis.
For further information, I particularly refer to the articles of Carelli?', Koblenzer*, Lissi & Bukara??,
Perdelwitz*° and Samson & Wulf** or the book of Kessler??.
3.3 Differences between Liechtenstein and Switzerland
The question naturally arises as to why Liechtenstein and Switzerland, two such close and familiar
states, have chosen such different solutions to regularise the problem of foreign untaxed assets. A de-
finitive answer to this question may not exist, since it depends on several events, decisions, people and
contingencies. One clear aspect is the countries’ differently structured financial sectors. The Swiss
financial industry has a strong focus on private banking whereas in Liechtenstein the formation of
foundations and establishments and the management and investment of their assets is much more im-
portant. This would explain why Switzerland developed agreements to regularise untaxed assets via
banks whereas Liechtenstein also included trustees and their administered structures in their solution.
In addition, the LDF was negotiated about 2 years before Switzerland agreed to the tax agreement with
UK. There’s a high chance that, if Switzerland had negotiated an agreement with UK earlier, the gov-
ernment of Liechtenstein would have reached a similar agreement. This is supported by the fact that in
2013 Liechtenstein reached a tax agreement with Austria based on an earlier Swiss-Austrian agree-
ment.
3.4 Legal Framework
This summary includes the “Agreement between the Swiss Confederation and the UK on co-operation
in the area of taxation”, the “Joint Declaration concerning the equivalence of the Agreement”, the
“UK/Swiss Protocol - Letters to implement changes to the formula" and the “Protocol amending the
Agreement between the Swiss Confederation and the United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern
Ireland on cooperation in the area of taxation, signed at London on 6 October 2011”. Due to the
7 Carelli, 2012, p. 301-307.
8 Koblenzer, 2012 (1), p. 124-131 an Koblenzer, 2012 (2), p. 154-160.
39 Lissi & Bukara, 2012 (1), p. 42-62 and Lissi & Bukara, 2012 (2), p. 104-122.
?? Perdelwitz, 2011, p. 496-503.
?!! Samson & Wulf, 2012, p. 245-251.
3 Kessler, 2012.
59
