Location promotion is being strategically realigned
The Lucerne Cantonal Council has approved a package of measures worth CHF 300 million per year to promote the canton as a business location. The aim is to prevent high-income taxpayers from moving away due to the OECD minimum tax. In addition, opening hours for shops at charging stations have been specified.
The Lucerne Cantonal Council supports the further development of location promotion. According to a statement, it passed the corresponding bill during its January session and amended the law on economic promotion and regional policy. It now provides for a package of measures for location promotion worth around CHF 300 million per year.
This is the canton’s response to the OECD minimum tax, which will require large international companies to pay more tax in future. According to an earlier press release explaining the motivation behind the package of measures and its contents, this means that the canton will lose its competitive advantage of low corporate income tax and fears that tax revenues and jobs could be lost.
Accordingly, the measures now approved in favour of the economy focus on promoting innovation, improving the tax burden and framework conditions with regard to digitalisation, the development of commercial space, the availability of commercial and residential space, and a “customer-oriented” administration. The measures in favour of the population concentrate on improvements in the tax burden, work-life balance, culture and digitalisation.
In addition, the Cantonal Council has decided that self-service shops without sales staff and with a maximum area of 30 square metres may be open daily from 5 a.m. to 10 p.m. A restriction to farm shops was rejected by an extremely narrow margin. Shops with at least four charging stations for electric vehicles, each with a minimum of 150 kilowatts and a simultaneous minimum total charging capacity of 300 kilowatts, are treated in the same way as petrol station shops. The SVP and SP announced a referendum against the proposal.