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Taxpayers invest in Italian postal savings bonds. They receive a payment in the hundreds of EUR in 2018. The tax authorities consider this income and tax it accordingly.

The administrative court considers that income should be spread over several years, meaning the past will have to be reopened, knowing that the oldest tax periods are time-barred.

The federal judges analysed the financial product. They found that it was a bond, i.e. written acknowledgements of fixed debt, issued in multiple copies under the same conditions and aimed at the collective obtainment of foreign capital («gelten als Obligationen schriftliche, auf feste Beträge lautende Schuldanerkennungen, die zwecks kollektiver Beschaffung von Fremdkapital, kollektiver Anlagegewährung oder Konsolidierung von Verbindlichkeiten in einer Mehrzahl von Exemplaren zu gleichartigen Bedingungen ausgegeben werden und dem Gläubiger zum Nachweis, zur Geltendmachung oder zur Übertragung der Forderung dienen» – cons. 4.3.1).

Taxpayers are of the opinion that they have an annual entitlement to the payment of interest, even if it is not actually paid each year but only upon maturity of the financial product.

Federal judges conclude from their analysis of the financial product that it must be classified as a financial product with a dominant single interest (IUP or zero-coupon bond), meaning that the interest is taxed at maturity and is calculated by the difference between (i) the sum repaid and (ii) the sum invested.

The ruling is in German. It concerns a Zurich case.

Federal Supreme Court, judgment 9C_339/2024 of 17 June 2025