
Encouraging Sustainable Investment through Direct Tax Relief: Swiss and EU State Aid Legal Framework
Prof. Henry Peter & Dr. Giedre Lideikyte HuberCHF 26.40
Zusammenfassung
Direct tax incentives for individual investors are one of
the policy measures that governments use to generate
funds to develop the sustainable business sector. There
are a number of arguments in favor of these measures.
Existing research in behavioral science shows that the
majority of investors perceive sustainable businesses
as less profitable. It is also known, at least so far, that
companies which follow sustainable commercial practices
find it harder to attract investors. Several governments
have identified this issue and enacted tax incentives
specifically designed to encourage investors to
turn to sustainable businesses. This type of economic
policy approach is, however, still very rare, and the literature
on the topic is sparse. This article seeks to provide
input from a legal standpoint, highlighting the rationale
and feasibility in the light of the fundamental
principles of taxation, as well as of EU state aid rules,
because this is an issue that inevitably arises. In particular,
it analyzes whether encouraging sustainable investments
via direct tax relief for investors is compatible
with the legal framework for EU state aid and Swiss
legislation. Depending on how such tax incentives are
structured, we argue that they can be compatible with
both
Inhalt
Introduction . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 208
2 Background: Sustainable investment policy
and fiscal incentives . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 209
3 Case studies: the UK and the Netherlands . . . . . . . . . 210
3.1 Sustainable Investment Tax Relief (UK) . . . . . . . . . . 210
3.2 Green Funds Scheme (NL) . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 211
3.3 The EU state aid regime . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 213
4 Analysis of the Swiss legal framework
for tax subsidies . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
4.1 Notions and analysis framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 214
4.2 Art. 94 Cst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 215
4.3 Art. 27 and 36 Cst . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 216
4.4 Inexistence of the Swiss state aid rules . . . . . . . . . . 217
4.5 Switzerland and the EU state aid rules . . . . . . . . . . 217
5 Conclusions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 218
Bibliography . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 219
Official Documents . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 220