4 · Zürich, read as a norm — what LS 631.121 actually says

The three gates of the previous chapter sit at national level. The fourth sits in a canton, and it sits in an ordinance — one that reads correctly only once the section everyone quotes steps aside.

The passage usually quoted from this ordinance is § 1 Abs. 2. The norm that defines filing is § 8. What § 1 Abs. 2 says is this: with the canton's applications a return can be filed «rechtsgültig» (with legal effect). That reads as an attribution, a statement of what the canton's applications can do. The norm that decides sits seven sections further on, and it is built differently: it makes «auf der Applikation erfasst» (entered on the application) an element of a legal definition. Why a machine-generated file does not arrive in Zürich today is a question for § 8, not § 1. Where that could change is a question for two sections that rarely surface in the public discussion: § 12 and § 13.

Who issued the norm, and when

The head of the enactment, word for word:

«Verordnung über die elektronische Einreichung der Steuererklärung (vom 18. Oktober 2011). Die Finanzdirektion, gestützt auf §§ 109 c, 109 d und 133 des Steuergesetzes vom 8. Juni 1997, verfügt:» (Ordinance on the electronic filing of the tax return, of 18 October 2011. The Finanzdirektion, acting on §§ 109 c, 109 d and 133 of the Steuergesetz of 8 June 1997, orders:)

— LS 631.121, version in force since 01.07.2025 (Nachtrag 129)

The issuing authority is the Finanzdirektion. Not the Regierungsrat, not the Kantonsrat. The ordinance is not an act of parliament, which would need a consultation, a committee, and a referendum period. It is an order of a directorate, and it has been re-issued three times since 2011 — Nachträge 075, 111 and 129, the last of them published in ABl 2025-05-23.

A second point, missing from almost every citation: the ordinance is of 18 October 2011. The line «in Kraft seit 01.07.2025» (in force since 01.07.2025) describes the version in force, not the enactment. The official metadata sheet gives 18.10.2011 as the date of enactment, 01.01.2013 as the date of entry into force, and 01.07.2025 as the date of publication (zhlex, LS 631.121). Footnote 2 of the consolidated text records: «Inkrafttreten gemäss § 14: Für die Pilotgemeinden 1. Januar 2012, für die übrigen Gemeinden 1. Januar 2013.» (entry into force under § 14: 1 January 2012 for the pilot municipalities, 1 January 2013 for the rest). The legal framework for electronic filing in Zürich is fourteen years old. What is new is the version, not the framework — and that same § 14, which carried the entry-into-force dates, was repealed on 13.05.2025.

The count: a single «rechtsgültig»

The whole dispute about the legal effect of an electronic filing hangs on one word, and that word appears in the 995 words of the ordinance exactly once. Method: a word-boundary search of the extracted full text of the consolidated enactment, run on 04.08.2026. One hit, in § 1 Abs. 2:

«² Mit diesen Applikationen kann die Steuererklärung gemäss den Vorgaben dieser Verordnung rechtsgültig elektronisch eingereicht werden.» (with these applications the tax return can be filed electronically with legal effect, in accordance with this ordinance)

«Diese Applikationen» (these applications) are those named in Abs. 1, the ones the kantonale Steueramt makes available «über das Internet» (over the internet). That is an attribution of legal effect to a tool — on its own, not yet a bar. It becomes a bar only once «mit diesen» (with these) is read as «nur mit diesen» (only with these), and that word is not there.

§ 8 Abs. 1 — the pivot

The block sits elsewhere. It binds more tightly, because it does not attribute — it defines:

«§ 8. ¹ Die Steuererklärung gilt als elektronisch eingereicht, wenn die steuerpflichtige Person die auf der Applikation erfasste Steuererklärung elektronisch an den Server übermittelt und dabei elektronisch bestätigt hat, dass die Steuererklärung wahrheitsgemäss und vollständig ausgefüllt ist.» (the tax return counts as filed electronically once the taxpayer transmits the return entered on the application to the server electronically and confirms electronically that it is completed truthfully and in full)

Two elements, cumulative. First: the return must have been entered on the application. Second: it must have been transmitted with electronic confirmation. Only when both are present does it «gilt» (count) as filed.

A file that an accounting system generates and a program transmits meets the second element without difficulty — and fails the first. It was not entered on the application. At most it was received into the application, and in law that is not the same thing. This distinction is the core of the Zürich finding: The bottleneck is not a format question, and not a question of whether applications carry legal effect. It is an element of entry inside a legal definition. On the question of interfaces into Zürich, § 8 Abs. 1 is the governing norm, not § 1 Abs. 2.

The ordinance carries that entry requirement through the rest of its mechanics. § 3 Abs. 2: «Die Steuerämter dürfen die Steuererklärungsdaten erst einsehen und bearbeiten, wenn die steuerpflichtige Person sie gemäss § 8 eingereicht hat.» (the Steuerämter may view and process the return data only once the taxpayer has filed them under § 8). § 7 Abs. 3: until filing under § 8, data can be changed and deleted at any time. The whole data-protection and procedural machinery of the ordinance is built around a state that exists only in the application.

§ 8 Abs. 3 — the norm speaks in the plural, the application in the singular

«³ Juristische Personen führen in der Bestätigung die natürlichen Personen auf, welche die Bestätigung für die juristische Person abgeben.» (in the confirmation, legal entities list the natural persons who give the confirmation for the legal entity)

The norm calls for a list. The application is built the other way. Asked from the floor how a return is filed where signature is joint, the Steueramt answers in its own questions-and-answers paper of 08.09.2025: «Es kann immer nur eine Person die Einreichung vornehmen. Ähnlich wie bei verheirateten natürlichen Personen gehen wir davon aus, dass die Zustimmung weiterer unterschriftsberechtigter Personen vorliegt.» (only one person can ever carry out the filing; as with married natural persons, we assume the consent of the other authorized signatories). The ordinance provides for a list; practice takes one sender and assumes the rest. For an AG with joint signature by two, this matters: it is the point at which the norm and the software diverge.

§ 11 — the delegation is a password, and it was confirmed in 2025

«§ 11. ¹ Die steuerpflichtige Person kann Drittpersonen durch Übergabe der Zugangsdaten bevollmächtigen, ihre Steuererklärungsdaten über die Applikation zu erfassen und die Steuererklärung elektronisch einzureichen.

² Die steuerpflichtige Person kann die Vollmacht jederzeit widerrufen, indem sie vom kantonalen Steueramt einen neuen Zugangscode verlangt. Der neue Zugangscode wird per Post an die im Steuerregister aufgeführte Adresse der steuerpflichtigen Person gesandt.» (the taxpayer may authorize third parties, by handing over the access credentials, to enter their tax return data via the application and to file the return electronically; the authorization can be revoked at any time by requesting a new access code from the kantonale Steueramt, which is sent by post to the address held in the tax register)

That is not an interface authorization. It is the handover of a password, with a revocation that runs through the post.

A correction to our own earlier account is due here. We treated § 11 as an inherited provision, something written that way in 2011 and left untouched since. That is not right. Footnote 7 of the consolidated text attaches expressly to § 11 Abs. 1: «Fassung gemäss Vfg. vom 13. Mai 2025 (OS 80, 149; ABl 2025-05-23). In Kraft seit 1. Juli 2025.» (version per order of 13 May 2025; in force since 1 July 2025). The delegation provision was opened in that same amendment, considered, and adopted again as a handover of access credentials. Abs. 2, revocation by post, is what carries over unchanged from 2011.

§ 12 — a register whose membership may not be named

The one regulated access route for commercial representatives sits in the same chapter, and it too has been re-issued:

«§ 12. ¹ Unternehmen, welche über eine Unternehmens-Identifikationsnummer … verfügen und gewerbsmässig Steuererklärungen für Dritte erstellen, können über die Transaktionsplattform ZHservices ihre Aufnahme in ein Register gewerbsmässiger Steuervertreter (Treuhänder-Register) beantragen.

² Das kantonale Steueramt überprüft die Unternehmens-Identifikationsnummer. Es verweigert Unternehmen, welche offensichtlich nicht gewerbsmässig Steuererklärungen für Dritte erstellen, die Aufnahme in das Register. Weitere Abklärungen werden nicht vorgenommen.

…

⁴ Das Register ist nicht öffentlich. Die Aufnahme in das Register darf Dritten in Inseraten, auf Websites, Briefpapier oder in anderer werbewirksamer Form nicht bekannt gegeben werden.» (companies holding a UID and preparing tax returns for third parties commercially may apply via the ZHservices transaction platform for entry in a register of commercial tax representatives, the Treuhänder-Register; the kantonale Steueramt checks the UID and refuses entry to companies that plainly do not prepare returns commercially for third parties — no further inquiries are made; the register is not public, and entry may not be disclosed to third parties in advertisements, on websites, on letterhead, or in any other promotional form)

Three things stand side by side here, and together they give a precise picture. First: the canton has indeed regulated an access regime for third parties — it runs through a named transaction platform, and that platform is exactly the one the Steueramt names in the Q&A of 08.09.2025 as a possible future route for third-party applications. Second: the entry bar is set by the text itself at a UID check and nothing further. Third: whoever is on the register may not say so. The one regulated third-party access route in the Zürich ordinance is a register whose membership carries an advertising ban.

That can be turned into a forecast, and a forecast has to carry its class, its grade, and its falsifier. Class: threshold-by-date. Grade: B (rubric cap, independent of argument strength). Statement: if the channel for third-party applications is opened for legal entities, entry under § 12 is the published access condition. Falsifier: an opening whose published condition is not registration; review horizon 31.12.2027. The evidence for the mechanism is that § 12 is already the gate to the existing channel for natural persons, and that the canton itself names «die bestehende ZHservices-Schnittstelle (analog NP)» (the existing ZHservices interface, as for natural persons) as a candidate.

§ 13 — the lever, and an open question we leave open

«§ 13. ¹ Das kantonale Steueramt erlässt die zur Umsetzung dieser Verordnung erforderlichen Ausführungsbestimmungen. Diese können als Weisungen an die Gemeindesteuerämter oder als Nutzungsvorschriften für die Steuerpflichtigen und deren Vertreter erlassen werden.» (the kantonale Steueramt issues the implementing provisions required for this ordinance; these may be issued as directives to the municipal Steuerämter or as usage rules for taxpayers and their representatives)

Unchanged since 2011. And a sentence of our own is due for correction here, one we put too strongly before: we wrote that this changes only with an amendment to the ordinance. We no longer make that claim. Two things are documented. The version in force provides for third parties nothing beyond the handover of access credentials. And § 13 Abs. 1 allows the Steueramt usage rules for taxpayers and their representatives — in substance the same legal form in which ZStB 109c.1 governs the municipal channel. Whether an opening requires an amendment to the ordinance or an implementing provision under § 13 is not settled by the documents. A claim in either direction goes beyond the sources. The open question is the more honest sentence, and the sharper one, because it names the addressee: the decision sits with the kantonale Steueramt, not with a legislature.

The chronology — a sequence of dates, no more

A second correction on our own account. We described the amendment of 13.05.2025 as having been made «eigens für diese Einführung» (specifically for this rollout). That phrase is withdrawn. The corpus contains no statement of reasons for the 2025 amendment — the consolidated text names one expressly for the 2011 enactment («Begründung siehe ABl 2011, 3104» — for the statement of reasons see ABl 2011, 3104), and for 2025 it gives only the publication references OS 80, 149 and ABl 2025-05-23. What remains is a sequence of dates:

Summer 2024 — tender for a «Standardsoftware für eine Online-Steuerdeklaration, die auch in anderen Kantonen genutzt werden kann» (standard software for an online tax declaration that can also be used in other cantons) (media release, 18.07.2025). 13.11.2024 — award, «noch unter dem Vorbehalt der Genehmigung durch den Regierungsrat» (still subject to approval by the Regierungsrat) (award notice from Ringler Informatik AG, 13.11.2024). 13.05.2025 — order of the Finanzdirektion. 01.07.2025 — entry into force. 18.07.2025 — media release. Mid-August 2025 — go-live. 25.08.2025 — information event. 08.09.2025 — questions and answers. Six months between award and amendment, two months between amendment and operation. Procurement, law, operation. The sources say no more, and no more is claimed here.

The extent of the amendment, by contrast, is documented precisely. Footnote 7 attaches to §§ 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 7, 8, 9, § 11 Abs. 1 and § 12; footnote 8 repeals § 14. Unchanged are § 10 (2020 version), § 11 Abs. 2 and § 13 — the last two in their original 2011 wording. § 6 had been repealed in 2020. So the whole working body of the ordinance was re-issued; what stayed are the revocation by post and the power to issue implementing provisions.

The limit of our material, named openly

What we cannot document: the wording before 13.05.2025. Nachtrag 111, recorded on the official metadata sheet as «in Kraft bis 01.07.2025» (in force until 01.07.2025), is not available to us. The file pulled for it, zh/lexfind-631.121.txt, is not text but a broken PDF byte stream — PDF-1.5 header, FrameMaker source 631.121_18.10.11_75.fm, and pypdf fails with «Cannot find Root object in pdf». Checked on 04.08.2026. One statement therefore stays out of reach: that «juristische Personen» was newly inserted into § 1 Abs. 1. All that is documented is that § 1 was re-issued and that the version in force names both categories of person. A count also has to say where it ends.

How the canton reads its own ordinance

The strongest support for the reading taken here comes from the canton itself, at the one place in the whole Zürich corpus addressed to taxpayers where LS 631.121 is cited at all. The page on the tax return for legal entities reads:

«Per E-Mail eingereichte Steuererklärungen sind gemäss Zürcher Steuerbuch, Verordnung über die elektronische Einreichung der Steuererklärung (ZStB Nr. 109c.4) nicht zulässig und werden nicht bearbeitet.» (tax returns filed by e-mail are not permitted under the Zürcher Steuerbuch, ordinance on the electronic filing of the tax return (ZStB no. 109c.4), and are not processed)

— zh.ch, Steuererklärung juristische Personen

The canton reads its ordinance as exhaustive, not enabling: whatever is not the application is not permitted — and is not processed. That is the authority's legal view of its own norm, published to taxpayers, and it matches the two cumulative elements of § 8 Abs. 1 exactly.

That the canton can regulate machine channels is documented four times over

The obvious reply is that it could hardly be otherwise, that a canton has no legal framework for such a thing. The record does not support that.

First, the enabling norm itself names interfaces, twice. LS 631.121 rests on §§ 109c, 109d and 133 StG. What § 109c Abs. 1 StG makes the subject of such rules is quoted verbatim in the directive ZStB 109c.1: «b. die Schnittstellen, die von den Gemeindesteuerämtern für die Entgegennahme von Daten des kantonalen Steueramtes bereitzustellen sind; c. die Schnittstellen, die von den Gemeindesteuerämtern zu beachten sind bei der Lieferung von Daten an das kantonale Steueramt.» (b. the interfaces the municipal Steuerämter are to provide for receiving data from the kantonale Steueramt; c. the interfaces they are to observe when delivering data to the kantonale Steueramt). The same delegation norm on which the filing ordinance rests carries the word. The power was exercised in one direction: municipality ↔ canton.

Second, straight-through processing is already written into a Zürich norm. ZStB 109c.1, directive of the Finanzdirektion of 26.11.2020, in force from 01.01.2021, word-identical in both directions: «Bei der elektronischen Übermittlung der Daten … ist sicherzustellen, dass sämtliche Daten ohne manuelle Bearbeitung in die betreffenden Applikationen … übernommen werden können.» (in the electronic transmission of the data it must be ensured that all data can be taken into the relevant applications without manual processing). With a transport rule («ausschliesslich das Kantonale Netzwerk (LeuNet)» — exclusively the cantonal network LeuNet), with a repeatability guarantee, with an acceptance procedure, and with a sanction: «Hält ein Gemeindesteueramt diese Vorschriften und Richtlinien nicht ein, kann der Kanton die ihm daraus entstehenden Mehrkosten der Gemeinde auferlegen.» (if a municipal Steueramt does not observe these rules and guidelines, the canton may charge the municipality the extra costs arising from that). The technical detail sits in guidelines that are not published: «Die Richtlinien können beim kantonalen Steueramt, Bereich Logistik, bezogen werden.» (the guidelines can be obtained from the kantonale Steueramt, Logistics unit). A sanction-backed, straight-through machine channel with a specification obtained on request — for five and a half years, for natural persons, inside the administration.

Third, the canton has issued separate ordinances for other electronic channels: LS 631.122 on the electronic service of orders and invoices, enacted 07.09.2012, in force since 01.12.2012, currently Nachtrag 079; and LS 631.43 on the electronic filing of withholding-tax data, enacted 15.09.2014, in force since 01.01.2015, Nachtrag 087. We do not have the full text of either, only the official metadata sheets. What is documented is therefore existence, title, dates, and Nachtrag numbers; of the content, nothing.

Fourth, the channel for third-party software already exists — for natural persons, and its gate is precisely that Treuhänder-Register from § 12. The canton confirms both points itself, in two words that are easy to read past: whether third-party applications will be connected «über die bestehende ZHservices-Schnittstelle (analog NP)» (via the existing ZHservices interface, as for natural persons) is not yet clear (Q&A, 08.09.2025). Existing. As for natural persons.

The return channel, two facts side by side

LS 631.122, the ordinance on the electronic service of orders and invoices, has been in force since 01.12.2012.

On 08.09.2025 the kantonale Steueramt answers the question whether tax documents still arrive by post: «Sämtliche Dokumente (z.B. Einschätzungs- oder Veranlagungsverfügungen, Auflagen, Rechnungen) werden nach wie vor per Post zugestellt.» (all documents — e.g. assessment orders, requests, invoices — are still delivered by post).

Two documented facts, twelve years and nine months apart. The ordinance on electronic service governs a channel; the answer of 08.09.2025 describes today's dispatch route. Neither document says whether the one replaces the other, or when.

What LS 631.121 actually says comes to one sentence at the end: the canton has built itself a channel in which a return exists only if it was entered in its application; alongside it, it has created a register for commercial representatives whose entry may not be disclosed in promotional form under § 12 Abs. 4; and § 13 Abs. 1 empowers the kantonale Steueramt to issue usage rules for taxpayers and their representatives. All three are decisions. None of them is a technical necessity.

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