Walter H. Boss

Walter H. Boss is a graduate of the University of Bern and of New York University School of Law, where he obtained an LLM (Tax) degree and was admitted to the bar in 1980. Until 1984 he served in the Swiss Federal Tax Administration (International Tax Law Division) as legal counsel and was also a delegate to the OECD Committee of Fiscal Affairs. He then worked as an attorney with major firms in Lugano and Zurich. In 1988, he became a partner at Ernst & Young’s International Services Office in New York. Upon his return to Switzerland in 1991 he joined a major law firm in Zurich; prior to co-founding Poledna Boss Kurer AG he was a partner at another well-known law firm in Zurich.

His areas of concentration are national and international tax law, mergers and acquisitions, private equity and corporate restructurings. He also advises private clients. He practices in German, English, French and Italian and has published extensively both in Switzerland and in the US and is, among others, a co-author of the commentary to the Swiss-US income tax treaty and a commentary on the Swiss Code of Obligations (corporate law).

He is a member of the Zurich Bar Association, the Swiss Bar Association, the American Bar Association, the International Bar Association and the International Fiscal Association. He serves as chairman of the Tax Chapter Board of the Swiss-American Chamber of Commerce. He is a member of the Practice Council of the New York University Law School’s International Tax Program.

PBK is a full-service interdisciplinary business law firm, located in Zurich, Switzerland. PBK was founded by four experienced practitioners from other law firms with their respective teams and has since grown to more than 20 professionals. PBK offers the full range of services typically required in the context of international transactions and restructurings, namely corporate, contractual, tax and labor law advice. It assists clients in corporate tax matters primarily by providing tax advice on restructurings and obtaining a ruling from the competent tax authorities. Furthermore, the firm also engages in tax litigation and does corporate tax compliance. In addition PBK has long-standing expertise in providing corporate legal and regulatory advice.

Our firm’s unique selling point from a corporate tax law standpoint certainly is the long-standing experience of our tax lawyers and their awareness of current developments as well as the administrative practice in the field of tax which allows us to give concise and well founded advice. As in Swiss tax law the federal and cantonal tax authorities still have a relatively high discretion, in the daily business we face challenges whether the competent tax authorities will accept a given structure from a tax point of view. These issues are typically addressed in a ruling in line with a well established ruling practice. The certainty for the taxpayer achieved this way renders the Swiss market very attractive to foreign investment. But also from the legal perspective, there is certainty of law, especially regarding M&A transactions.