Tax Treaty Case Law around the Globe 2024

26.1. Facts of the different cases

In recent months, the Austrian Federal Fiscal Court (Bundesfinanzgericht, BFG) has had to rule on several cases concerning pensions for a former activity as an employee of a Swiss legal entity under public law. In each case, the person who received the income was a resident of Austria. The first case concerned the pension of the former public employee himself, while the later cases concerned the widows of former Swiss public employees who were also entitled to pensions due to the activities of their deceased spouse.

The cases are interrelated insofar as the BFG also referred to arguments in the later rulings that were already detailed in the first ruling. Conversely, the BFG also took up arguments in the subsequent decisions that had been put forward in scholarly writing in the meantime when analysing the first decision. Critical voices on the first decision were presumably also the reason why the BFG no longer used some arguments in the later decisions. The reasons for the decisions are therefore closely related, which is why they will be discussed together below.

26.2. The applicability of article 19 of the Double Taxation Convention of Austria-Swi...