Finances Keller-Sutter: Additional income from Geneva will only alleviate the deficit for a short time
Finance Minister Karin Keller-Sutter expects a structural deficit of around three billion francs a year in the coming years. Unexpectedly high tax revenues from the canton of Geneva could provide relief, as she said in an interview.
26.01.2025, 06:44
SDA
This involves additional revenue of several 100 million francs per year, as the President of the Swiss Confederation explained in an interview with the "SonntagsZeitung" and "Le Matin Dimanche". The additional revenue comes in particular from commodities and energy companies that made particularly high profits in 2022 and 2023.
However, Keller-Sutter emphasized: "It is only a one-off effect. In the short term, it could help us to finance the additional army expenditure." Even if the federal government were able to book CHF 500 million more in tax revenue over two to three years, the problem of structural deficits would not be solved. She added: "We are talking here about perhaps 0.5 to 1 percent of the budget - and only temporarily."
The federal budget for 2025 adopted by Parliament in December 2024 provides for an increase in army funding of CHF 530 million - more than originally planned by the Federal Council. The additional expenditure will be offset by cuts in international cooperation (minus CHF 110 million) and federal personnel (minus CHF 40 million), among other things. In the long term, army funding is to increase to one percent of gross domestic product (GDP) by 2032. This will require a further CHF 600 million per year from 2026.
