Swiss citizens have voted on several contentious issues in four nationwide referenda – approving a constitutional right to use cash, ending tax penalties for married couples, but rejecting a bid to halve the mandatory fees for public broadcaster SRG.
Yesterday, 73 per cent of voters approved of a government proposal to enshrine the use of cash in the Swiss Constitution.
It will now be amended to include the Swiss Franc as the country’s currency, and the Swiss National Bank will be legally required to make sure there will always be enough cash money available.
While critics argued that the clause was rather symbolic, proponents of the amendment were pleased. “For us it is a victory. The people have said: We want cash in the constitution,” said Richard Koller, the man who had initiated the referendum.
A majority of 54 per cent of the Swiss voted to end a long-standing tax disadvantage that often resulted in higher tax bills for married couples, the so-called “marriage penalty”. Currently, the individual incomes of married spouses is added up and taxed jointly, leading to higher tax bills due to the progressive nature of the Swiss tax system.
The proponents of the successful Individual Taxation initiative had argued this long-standing tax clause was disincentivising people from getting married and would keep married women from working.
The adoption of the initiative is a major success for Switzerland’s Liberal Democratic Party (FDP), which had campaigned for an end to the marriage penalty for years. Meanwhile, conservative groups had campaigned against the initiative, arguing that it undermined the traditional family model.
Another contentious issue at the ballot box yesterday was the so-called “Halving Initiative” whose organisers had demanded that the controversial household TV tax which funds state broadcaster SRG be cut from Fr 335 (€372) to Fr. 200 (€222) per year. This would have meant that funding for SRG would have effectively halved from Fr 1.6 billion (€1.7 billion) to Fr 800 million (€888 million) per year.
The proponents – primarily from the conservative side around the Swiss People’s Party (SVP) – had argued that Switzerland’s TV tax was the highest in the world and that the public broadcaster was biased in its reporting.
Critics of the initiative – including many left-wingers – had said that weakening SRG was “dangerous for democracy”.
While the initiative initially polled well, the Swiss ultimately rejected the funding cut for the public broadcaster with a vote of 62 per cent.
The same fate befell a left-wing initiative that had demanded the establishment of a “Swiss Climate Fund”. The proposal was decisively rejected with a 71 per cent vote.
Switzerland is a beacon of direct democracy with its citizens regularly voting on potentially far-reaching issues.
