Swiss import duties on a number of industrial products might disappear if a plan put forward by Guy Parmelin, Switzerland’s economic’s minister, is approved by the National Council, Switzerland’s parliament, according to RTS.
The changes are expected to benefit businesses and consumers by around CHF 860 million a year. On the other hand, the government will miss out on collecting roughly CHF 500 million a year of revenue from import duties.
Products covered by the plan include cars, clothing, household appliances, bicycles, healthcare products and a number of other industrial products. On average these products attract duty of 1.8%. Clothing is taxed at 4%.
Sophie Michaud-Gigon, a representative of FRC, a consumer association, told RTS that it’s rare to see lower import costs leading to lower prices.
If accepted, the duties would disappear on 1 January 2022, according to RTS.
Unfortunately for some consumers, none of the highly taxed food items such as meat and dairy products are on this list. Duty on some beef products can rise above CHF 20 per kg. Cream and butter (CHF 7.65 per kg) are other products with high import duty.
More on this:
RTS article (in French) – Take a 5 minute French test now
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JOYPATTINSON says
It’s my understandng that anything above CHF 65 is taxed. Is that about to change?
Le News says
Generally speaking VAT is payable on all imports into Switzerland. This article refers to import duties, which are due in addition to VAT. The roughly 65 franc limit you refer to still works for some items. It used to be applied generally, however, some time ago, the Swiss government removed it for products bought from companies with revenue above 100,000 francs a year. These companies are supposed to register for Swiss VAT, collect it and pay it to the Swiss government. This isn’t all bad. It can speed the passage of parcels through customs and it removes the risk of getting charged large processing fees. Import duties and VAT are dealt with separately so it’s complicated. In summary, it depends. Here’s an article on it: https://lenews.ch/2019/01/04/vat-now-applied-to-most-foreign-online-shopping-from-1-january-2019/