Vaudois citizens will be able to decide at the ballot box the extent of the tax cuts to which they will ultimately be entitled. The committee which launched the cantonal initiative “Tax cuts for all”, which calls for a 12% tax reduction, announced on Friday that it was maintaining its initiative, which will therefore be submitted to the people. The decision was expected because in December, the Grand Council reached a compromise, with a reduction in taxation of 7% spread over a few years (a first reduction of 3.5% has already come into force for the year 2024) .
“Vaud has for decades been in the top three cantons which tax individuals the most, particularly the middle classes. This is unacceptable,” notes the committee, made up of employers’ associations. The last word must go to the population itself, “it is also a question of respect for the 28,000 signatories of the initiative”, he adds. The Vaudois should therefore be able to choose between the 12% proposed by the initiative or the 7% voted by the Grand Council.
The vote could take place already this spring, but could also be postponed. Because the initiative committee announced, at the same time as it said it was maintaining its initiative, that it had filed a request with the Constitutional Court to invalidate a decision of the Grand Council in December. In addition to the promised tax cut, deputies voted to strengthen the protection provided by the tax shield (the mechanism which provides that no one can pay an amount of taxes greater than 60% of their annual income). Except that this should only come into force if the 12% initiative is refused by the people.
“This is a serious attack on the freedom to vote,” believes the initiative committee. Because a voter who would be in favor of both the 12% reduction and the strengthening of the tax shield would not be able to express it at the ballot box. If he votes for the initiative, he approves the strengthening of the tax shield, if he votes against, he validates it, but renounces the 12% tax cut. “The citizen hostile to both the legislative revision concerning the tax shield and the initiative will find himself in the same grotesque situation,” it is still written. So we haven’t heard the last of it.
