Inheritances
- intercantonal aspects of tax differentiation

Whether an heir or legatee receives real estate or cash is irrelevant for inheritance tax purposes. Rather, the canton of last residence taxes each inheritance share for each beneficiary in proportion to the share of movable assets in the total assets. For their part, the real estate cantons are entitled to tax each inheritance share in proportion to the share of the real estate located on their territory in the total assets.

Bequests (legacies) are treated in the same way as estate shares. This means that each canton can tax each legacy to the extent of its quota (share of the total assets), regardless of whether the legacy consists of movable or immovable assets.

An objective separation or individual consideration from the perspective of an individual municipality with properties in the estate is not permissible.

As with direct taxes, the so-called progression proviso also applies to inheritance taxes. The cantons entitled to levy tax may therefore apply the tax rate applicable to the entire inheritance share to the proportion of the inheritance share to which they are entitled or levy the proportion of the total tax calculated in accordance with cantonal law to which they are entitled on the respective inheritance shares.

For reasons of equal treatment under the law, the cantons are also obliged to determine the net tax-able estate according to their own cantonal valuation rules and to calculate the assessment basis in the same way for both purely intracantonal and intercantonal situations. This means not only that the repartition values of real estate used for the intercantonal transfer of debts must be reversed for the calculation of the tax, but also that the extracantonal tax values of real estate must be converted to the level of the intra-cantonal values.