This is not the first time that a decision by the Federal Supreme Court has perplexed Dominique Giroud's lawyers, who are wondering why the country's highest court is ignoring the wine merchant's arguments and retaining only the incriminating facts. But this time, the bad faith of the Federal Court is particularly evident. In a ruling handed down on 26 August 2016, it deliberately chose to deny the existence of a tax theory (the consolidation theory) that it had itself developed in a now famous ruling of 30 January 2006. At the time, this tax theory even caused a great deal of ink to flow, prompting comments from several tax law professors. The Valais Cantonal Tax Office, the Federal Tax Administration and the Valais Cantonal Appeals Commission accept the existence of this theory. Furthermore, in a legal opinion, René Matteotti, Professor of Tax Law at the University of Zurich, argues that this theory of consolidation should be applied in the Giroud case. In this context, why did the Federal Court decide to deny the obvious, if not because of an anti-Giroud bias? In concrete terms, if this theory had been accepted, the income withheld would have remained the same, but its tax impact would have been significantly reduced. With regard to the display of media mediocrity that this decision by the Federal Court has generated, we refer you to the news of the 8 September 2016.
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