Critics of inheritance tax initiative to spend millions on campaign

The opponents of the Swiss initiative to tax million-franc inheritances are spending big on the referendum campaign. The various committees have budgeted CHF3.67 million ($4.57 million) for the no campaign – many times more than those in favour. +Get the most important news from Switzerland in your inbox This is shown by figures from the Swiss Federal Audit Office (SFAO) published on Friday. According to these figures, the initiators, the youth wing of the left-wing Social Democratic Party (Juso), have a planned expenditure of CHF400,000. Their budget is therefore nine times smaller than that of their opponents. By publishing the campaign budgets, the authorities are implementing the transparency initiative. Budgets of more than CHF50,000 must be reported, whereby contributions to the committees of more than CHF15,000 are listed individually. On November 30, voters and cantons will decide on the Juso inheritance tax initiative and an initiative to introduce a citizens' service for all.