Taxpayers report a value for an investment in a foreign CIS on their tax return. The appellants do not declare the income generated by this investment. The tax authorities request clarification, which the taxpayers provide.
12+ months after the definitive taxation came into effect, the tax authorities have opened a criminal tax investigation against taxpayers for attempted evasion (non-declaration of income and undervaluation of assets).
Taxpayers refer to the principle of criminal procedure.
No one is obliged to incriminate himself.,
to wit that no one is obliged to incriminate themselves.
Does this principle apply in standard (open) tax proceedings?
The cantonal judges held that \u00abFrom the moment the first investigative act intended to clarify a situation was undertaken...\".
With regard to the taxpayer, the subtraction procedure must be considered open and the rights of the accused must be protected. Furthermore, the administration is required to open criminal proceedings when it has doubts about the existence of an offence\u00bb (para. 6.3). The tax authorities first clarified the factual elements for the assessment, and once this was final, they initiated tax criminal proceedings. \u00abThis method of proceeding does not comply with the procedural rules applicable in matters of tax criminal law. Indeed, sufficient suspicion justifying the opening of criminal proceedings for attempted tax evasion already existed during the ordinary assessment procedure, meaning that the tax authority was obliged to respect its duty to inform the applicants of their right to refuse to provide evidence and to cooperate\u00bb (para. 7.3.1).
What consequence? The absence of information leads to the unsuitability of the evidence gathered. Without this evidence, as the tax authorities' file is empty, the cantonal judges conclude that the criminal proceedings must be annulled.
The judgment is in French. This is a case from Fribourg.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
TC-FR, ruling 604 2025 115, of 8 January 2025<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
\ud83d\udc49 Les contribuables reportent dans leur d\u00e9claration une valeur pour un investissement dans un PCC \u00e9tranger. Les recourants ne d\u00e9clarent pas le revenu g\u00e9n\u00e9r\u00e9 par cet investissement. Le fisc demande des pr\u00e9cisions, ce que font les contribuables. \ud83d\udc49 12+ mois apr\u00e8s que la taxation d\u00e9finitive entre en force, le fisc ouvre une proc\u00e9dure de droit […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-332","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"acf":[],"yoast_head":"\n