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 only reads correctly once the section everybody quotes steps aside.

What gets quoted from this ordinance is usually § 1 Abs. 2. The norm that defines filing is § 8. § 1 Abs. 2 is the one quoted: with the canton's applications a return can be filed «rechtsgültig» (with legal effect). That sounds like an attribution, like advertising for a portal. The norm that actually decides sits seven sections further on and is built differently: it makes «auf der Applikation erfasst» (entered on the application) an element of a legal definition. Anyone who wants to understand why a machine-generated file does not arrive in Zürich today reads § 8, not § 1. And anyone who wants to know where that can change reads two sections that barely appear in the public discussion: § 12 and § 13.

Who issued the norm, and when

The head of the enactment reads verbatim:

«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, based 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 that 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 published in ABl 2025-05-23.

A second precision, lost in 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 frame for electronic filing in Zürich is fourteen years old. What is new is the version, not the frame — 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: word-boundary search over 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 the ones named in Abs. 1, which 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, and it is markedly harder, 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 electronically to the server 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 may clear the second element without effort — it fails the first. It was not entered on the application. At most it was received in the application, and legally that is not the same thing. This precision 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 entry element inside a legal definition. For the question of interfaces into Zürich, § 8 Abs. 1 is the governing norm, not § 1 Abs. 2.

And the ordinance means the entry requirement seriously. § 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 entire data-protection and procedural mechanics of the ordinance are 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.» (legal entities list in the confirmation the natural persons who give the confirmation for the legal entity)

The norm calls for a list. The application takes a different view. Asked from the floor how to file 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 authorised 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 where 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 authorise third parties, by handing over the access credentials, to enter their tax return data via the application and to file the return electronically; the authorisation 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 authorisation. That is handing over a password, with a revocation that needs a letter.

A correction to our own earlier account is due here. We treated § 11 as legacy stock, as 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, looked at — and adopted again as a handover of access credentials. Only Abs. 2, revocation by post, carries over unchanged from 2011.

§ 12 — a register whose membership may not be named

The only regulated access route for commercial representatives sits in the same chapter, and it 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 enquiries 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 over 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 deliberately low, a UID check and nothing more. Third: whoever is in 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 then it 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 base 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 statement is due here that we put too hard 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 only 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. Anyone claiming otherwise, in either direction, goes beyond the sources. The open question is the more honest and the sharper sentence, because it names the addressee: the decision sits with the kantonale Steueramt, not with a legislature.

The chronology — a sequence of dates, no more

Another correction on our own account. We described the amendment of 13.05.2025 as changed «eigens für diese Einführung» (specifically for this rollout). That phrase is withdrawn. The corpus contains no reasoning for the 2025 amendment — the consolidated text expressly names one for the 2011 enactment («Begründung siehe ABl 2011, 3104» — for the reasoning see ABl 2011, 3104), and for 2025 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 exactly. 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 already been repealed in 2020. So the entire operating body 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, per the official metadata sheet «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. From this follows a statement we may not make: 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. Anyone who runs 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 single place in the entire Zürich corpus addressed to taxpayers where LS 631.121 is cited at all. On the page about the tax return for legal entities it says:

«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: what 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 double element of § 8 Abs. 1 exactly.

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

The obvious reply is that this is simply how it is, that a canton has no legal frame for such a thing. That reply does not hold.

First, the enabling norm itself names interfaces, twice. LS 631.121 rests on §§ 109c, 109d and 133 StG. What § 109c Abs. 1 StG declares to be 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 knows the word. The power was exercised in one direction: municipality ↔ canton.

Second, Zürich has already put straight-through processing into a 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 you collect — for five and a half years, for natural persons, inside the administration.

Third, the canton has issued separate ordinances for further 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, nothing about content.

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 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 like this: «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. Whether and when the one replaces the other, neither document says.

What LS 631.121 actually says can be put in 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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