CHF 300,000 in a gift from the father sold as a loan

When money is passed on within the family as a loan, it must actually function like a genuine loan. This means:

A loan must involve a genuine obligation to repay: if it is clear at the time the contract is concluded that no repayment will be required – for example, through regular debt forgiveness – then it is not a loan but a gift.

The contract must make economic sense: a ‘loan’ that is automatically written off over the years without any repayment ever being expected is regarded as a sham transaction and is treated for tax purposes as a gift.

Depending on the canton, gifts must be declared for tax purposes: Anyone attempting to disguise a gift as a loan risks tax adjustments and back taxes, as one father discovered. He granted his daughter a ‘loan’ of 300,000 francs, which, according to the contract, was to be reduced by 50,000 francs each year through debt forgiveness. In other words: the daughter never actually had to repay anything. The tax authorities and the courts did not regard this as a genuine loan, but as a disguised gift. (Source: BGE 9C_243/2024 of 11 September 2025)