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Swiss voters reject mandatory national service for women and new inheritance tax (apnews.com)

submitted 3 days ago by MicroWave@lemmy.world to c/world@lemmy.world

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Swiss voters on Sunday decisively rejected a call to require women to do national service in the military, civil protection teams or other forms, as all men must do already.

Official results. with counting still ongoing in some areas after a referendum, showed that more than half of Switzerland’s cantons, or states, had rejected the “citizen service initiative” by wide margins. That meant it was defeated, because proposals need a majority of both voters and cantons to pass.

Voters also heavily rejected a separate proposal to impose a new national tax on individual donations or inheritances of more than 50 million francs ($62 million), with the revenues to be used to fight the impact of climate change and help Switzerland meet its ambitions to have net-zero greenhouse gas emissions by 2050.

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[-] aldhissla@piefed.world 16 points 1 day ago

ITT: people judging the vote and the voters by the magnanimous title alone.

The initiatives were worded and implemented so poorly, that it wouldn't surprise me if the initiants wanted to lose both these votes.

The inheritance tax would have caused mass nationalisations and it had pegged the tax proceeds to go towards climate goals instead of let's say the federal pension fund deficit (AHV-Loch). It would be incorrect to state that the voters don't support an inheritance tax or climate goals based on this vote.
The "service citoyen" proposal would have made some kind of civil or military service mandatory for all, but would have essentially reduced the military to a volunteer force, which would be socially unacceptable. The Swiss have a historically repeatedly confirmed will to keep a citizen's militia as the country's only security force.

[-] Leomas@lemmy.world 2 points 1 day ago

There is no "AHV-Loch", we're doing well in that respect. I'm against the second initiative too, but your rationalization is wild.

[-] kandoh@reddthat.com 46 points 2 days ago

Insane that any democracy would reject an inheritance tax

[-] wooffersyt@lemmings.world 14 points 2 days ago

Most workers have been conditioned to fight tooth and nail for their oppressors.

It's really sad.

[-] Ibisalt@lemmy.world 10 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

the problem how i understood is, that we are not only talking about cash money but also money that is in businesses. family owned businesess may then be forced to sell their business to shareholder owned foreign corpos, because they could not afford it due to the tax. that sparked some major fear among voters. the result was not even close, it was 78% No! thats hughe and beyond any left/right worldview, not a single canton voted yes, that alone is a clear indicator that this bill was not very well-thought-out

[-] nyctre@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Not that insane. Most people only concern themselves with their own issues. And if you're a 40 year old whose childhood home is now worth 500k or whatever and you have to pay 200k in taxes in order to inherit it, then you probably want to vote against it because otherwise the government will take it.

Okay, take all that with a grain of salt because I'm not too familiar with inheritance law, but it's based on multiple similar stories I've heard from people.

I still think it should be taxed, don't get me wrong. But I understand why people are against it.

[-] SmoothOperator@lemmy.world 15 points 2 days ago

The text indicates that it's only on inheritances greater than 62 million dollars

[-] nyctre@lemmy.world 5 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Yeah, it's true that in this case most people would never have to care about that. When I replied I was thinking about inheritance taxes in general. My bad.

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[-] SARGE@startrek.website 93 points 3 days ago

Is Switzerland full of sexist people who think "someday I'LL be rich so I don't want to tax MYSELF more, hypothetically maybe in the distant future"?

[-] trxxruraxvr@lemmy.world 75 points 3 days ago

Afaik, Switzerland is a very conservative place. So that pretty much aligns with what you said.

[-] Kirp123@lemmy.world 65 points 3 days ago

They are so conservative that women got the right to vote federally in 1971. In one Canton they only got the right to vote at the local level in 1990 after a Supreme Court decision. They were the last Western Democracy to do so.

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[-] NuXCOM_90Percent@lemmy.zip 34 points 2 days ago

Sexist is debatable but... yeah

But everyone worshiping the rich? Yeah, that is Switzerland in a nutshell. A decade or so ago I spent a week in Switzerland on holiday and... even the state funded museums kinda felt like "And then so and so developed a really cool technology that saved countless lives. AND THEN THEY GOT RICH!!! FRANCA FRANCA BILS Y'ALL!!!! And here is what they bought with it and the house they lived in and how much paper it takes to print out their monthly statement and... Oh, the tech? Whatever, nobody cares about that"

[-] freijon@lemmings.world 2 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

The main counter argument was that this tax would make Switzerland quite unattractive to rich people, and that they would simple leave the country so that they don't have to pay this tax. And then Switzerland would even lose tax income overall.

[-] Dragonstaff@leminal.space 2 points 23 hours ago

This argument is the knee jerk reaction to any tax proposal and should be laughed out of town as it has never ever actually happened.

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[-] oxysis 78 points 3 days ago

If men have to sign up for the draft then it is only fair that women have to too. It’s unfair that only men have to risk being drafted and losing so much of their life to war.

[-] Barrington@feddit.org 20 points 2 days ago

Personally, I think having a draft is a terrible idea regardless of gender.

They voted down adding women to this already bad idea. Potentially in the future, they remove the draft altogether.

I guess my point is, why would you want them to make the situation worse just so it is equal?

[-] Rakonat@lemmy.world 4 points 1 day ago

While I understand the pushback against military drafts/service requirements, they also can be a net positive for a culture that applies them equally regardless of gender, class or ethnicity. You are significantly less likely to support war if your children or grandchildren could potentially get dragged into it. Want to the majority of wars? Make it a law that the heirs of the rich must serve in the infantry during wartime.

[-] iamdefinitelyoverthirteen@lemmy.world 5 points 1 day ago

Counterpoint: with a draft, people are less willing to support the government going to war.

[-] remon@ani.social 13 points 2 days ago

Potentially in the future, they remove the draft altogether.

Support for mandatory military service in Switzerland has been going up in recent years, so I wouldn't count on it.

[-] JcbAzPx@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Removing the draft is never on the table.

[-] biotin7@sopuli.xyz 6 points 1 day ago

Actually I rather if Drafting was abolished altogether

[-] hubobes@sh.itjust.works 13 points 2 days ago* (last edited 2 days ago)

Oh give me a break, women are getting away worse in so many facets of life. When we have fixed discrimination against women we can talk about them doing mandatory civil service.

Edit: Did not know that on Lemmy we have such an issue with women's rights.

[-] biotin7@sopuli.xyz 9 points 1 day ago* (last edited 1 day ago)

Nope, it is YOU who has an issue with equality. But then Men's blood is cheap to you right. So what if they get their limbs blown up. That's not suffering to you.

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[-] drmoose@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

So? Are we supposed to have a fair, equal society or are we playing these games of measuring each other's cocks?

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[-] ipkpjersi@lemmy.ml 7 points 2 days ago

It doesn't sound like Lemmy has an issue with women's rights, it sounds like you have an issue with equal rights.

[-] Xella@lemmy.world 3 points 1 day ago

Unfortunately a large majority of people have an issue with women's rights 🥲

[-] EndlessNightmare@reddthat.com 23 points 2 days ago

As a general rule, I oppose gender roles codified into law.

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[-] ObtuseDoorFrame@lemmy.zip 22 points 2 days ago

It feels very strange to be a US citizen and actually be able to judge another country for making a silly conservative decision. Woo?

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[-] LegoBrickOnFire@lemmy.world 16 points 2 days ago

What is not well enough reprensented in this post is that the Service Citoyen was not only about makimg women do a mandatory service. It was to transform the outdated and regressive mandatory service for men into a more general service to the collective that treated security not as a entirely militaristic issue but as a wholistic one.

Now parliament will interpret this as a mandate to cull the existing useful civil service and force every men (and potentially women too) into the military.

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this post was submitted on 30 Nov 2025

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