Federal Supreme Court, 15.09.2025, 9C_472/2024
Facts
A couple residing in the canton of Zurich owns a vacation apartment in the canton of Grisons. For the 2022 tax year, the taxpayers declared the rental value and tax value of their property based on an official assessment dating back to 2011. During the final tax assessment, the Grisons tax authority applied a new property valuation, dated May 15, 2023, which resulted in a higher rental and tax value. The taxpayers challenged this decision, arguing that the new valuation should only apply from the 2023 tax year onwards. Their objection and subsequent cantonal appeal were rejected. They have now appealed to the Federal Supreme Court.
Legal Analysis
The dispute concerns whether a new property valuation, carried out after the end of a tax year but before its final assessment, can be applied to that same period. According to the principle of the reference date (Art. 17 para. 1 of the Federal Act on Direct Federal Tax), taxable wealth is assessed at the end of the tax year (December 31). In principle, the official valuation in force on that date is decisive. However, Grisons law does not contain a specific rule regarding the temporal application of new valuations. According to the practice of the Grisons authorities, confirmed by the lower court, a new valuation—even if performed after the reference date—is applied if it is temporally closer to that date than the previous valuation. The new value is presumed to better reflect the actual value of the property on the reference date. The Federal Supreme Court examined whether this practice violates constitutional principles. It dismissed the argument of inadmissible retroactivity, as the issue is not the application of a new legal standard to past events, but rather the determination of a factual situation (the property value) at an earlier date. Similarly, the principles of legal certainty, protection of legitimate expectations, and equal treatment were not violated. Taxpayers must expect periodic revisions (generally every ten years in Grisons). Applying the most current and accurate value available at the time of assessment serves the principle of equal treatment by ensuring taxation in accordance with actual economic capacity.
Application to the Case
On the reference date of December 31, 2022, the previous valuation was more than eleven years old. The new valuation was carried out less than six months later, on May 15, 2023. It is therefore temporally much closer to the reference date and more reliably reflects the actual value of the property at that time. In the absence of any contrary cantonal legal provision, and given that the practice is not considered contrary to constitutional rights, the tax authority was entitled to use the new 2023 valuation for the 2022 tax year assessment. The fact that this valuation was formally established after the end of the tax year in question does not preclude this.
Outcome
The Federal Supreme Court dismissed the taxpayers' appeal. The tax authority's decision to apply the new property valuation from May 2023 to the 2022 tax year is upheld.
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