BERN. Elisabeth Baume-Schneider has defended the planned rise in value added tax that is to pay for the 13th AHV pension payment, calling parliament’s package a moderate and socially acceptable compromise. Voters decide on 29 November, seven weeks away and less than two months before the first bonus month lands.
The proposal raises the standard VAT rate from 8.1 to 8.5 per cent and the special hotel rate from 3.8 to 4 per cent. The reduced rate on essential goods, including food and medicines, stays at 2.6 per cent, and no VAT falls on health insurance premiums. The extra revenue, about CHF 1.4 billion a year, is earmarked for the first pillar.
The social affairs minister’s argument is arithmetic. Without the increase, government projections show the AHV running an annual deficit of almost CHF 5 billion by 2035. With it, the shortfall shrinks to around CHF 3 billion, still large but financeable while longer term reforms are negotiated.
The Case for the Checkout Tax
The government and the parliamentary majority present VAT as the fairest available instrument: it is paid by everyone who consumes, including pensioners themselves and the tourists who fund a slice of every hotel bill. Spreading the cost across generations, Baume-Schneider said, is how the system stays sound for the next one.
The December payment concentrates the argument. Around 2.5 million pensioners, including those living abroad, receive the first 13th month that month, at a cost of CHF 4.2 billion. CHF 1.4 billion of it would come from the VAT rise. One People’s Party motion already wants the supplement stopped at the border.
The Case Against
The Liberals opened their No campaign in late September. Higher VAT, they argue, erodes purchasing power precisely where inflation already bites, and loads costs onto small and medium sized businesses. Their alternative is structural: spending cuts first, and an honest debate about the retirement age rather than a quiet tax rise.
The referendum committee, drawn from a parliamentary minority of the centre right, makes the simpler point that the 13th pension was approved without a funding plan, and that voters are now being billed a second time for a promise made the first time.
Baume-Schneider said she was confident the package could win. Her aim, she added, is to leave future generations a financially sound social security system. The ballot papers go out at the end of October.