Swiss votes: no to inheritance tax

Swiss voters have turned down a nationwide inheritance tax as a means of providing financial support for AVS, the social security system. At the polls Sunday they agreed to a change in the TV/radio license, by a narrow margin of 4,000 votes – the amount of the tax is expected to drop from CHF450 a year to 400, but everyone will have to pay, rather than just those with radio and television sets.

Two other national votes were part of Sunday’s set.

Voters firmly refused to harmonize nationwide the amount of financial support cantons provide to students. They accepted comfortably new regulations that allow doctors to select a healthy fetus before implanting it in a woman’s uterus.
Geneva, meanwhile, voted to make it easier to change office space to apartments, a change that could help ease the tight housing situation.