Organization of the audit actions on personal income tax

general assembly on January 14, 2015

The Court of Audit examines in its report to the Federal Parliament how the tax authorities have organized the audit actions on personal income tax. It appears that selecting at central level the files to be verified, basically guarantees that the chance to undergo an audit is in theory equal for all taxpayers with the same risk profile. However, the chance of actually coming under scrutiny strongly depends on the audit capacity of the local audit service. STIRCO, the tool developed to manage the audit programme and digitalize the audit files, still leaves room for improvement. It is not regarded to be user-friendly or efficient and does not sufficiently meet the needs on the local level. Furthermore, it is too closely intertwined with the application which automatizes the management operations. As a result, the two systems must always be consulted simultaneously.