SWITZERLAND: The youth wing of the Swiss Socialist Party on Wednesday launched their new popular initiative aiming to impose higher taxes on capital-rich people in Switzerland. The so-called ‘99%’ initiative, which must now gain the required 100,000 signatures before it can be put to a referendum, targets the super-rich one percent who do not work but derive all their income from their financial assets. Under the slogan ‘money doesn’t work, we do’, the initiative proposes higher taxes on revenue derived from capital over a fixed amount.
Taxable interest, dividends and rental income totalling over 100,000 francs a year should be multiplied by 150 percent for tax purposes, say the young socialists. Such a system would bring in an additional five to ten billion francs to Swiss government coffers, says the youth party, which could allow the government to reduce taxes for those on low or middle incomes, or offer them other benefits such as exemption from health insurance premiums or free childcare. Ahead of launching their campaign for signatures, on Tuesday the Young Socialists staged a demonstration outside the house of Swiss People’s Party (SVP) MP Magdalena Martullo-Blocher, the daughter of former SVP leader Christoph Blocher. Speaking to 20 Minuten, Young Socialist president Tamara Funiciello said Martullo-Blocher’s house had been chosen because she was a “symbol of the super-rich” and “swims in money like Scrooge McDuck while other people are not able to pay their rent or their health insurance premiums”. Several politicians, including the president of the Socialist Party Christian Levrat, support the youth party’s initiative, said ATS.
