1. See, among others, Campbell, John L., “The State and Fiscal Sociology,” Annual Review of Sociology 19 (1993): 163–85.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

2. Classical studies on the history of twentieth-century taxation deal with this subject. For the United States, see Jo Martin, Cathie, “American Business and the Taxing State: Alliances for Growth in the Postwar Period,” in Funding the Modern American State, 1941–1995: The Rise and Fall of the Era of Easy Finance, ed. Elliot Brownlee, W. (Cambridge, 1996), 353–406.Google Scholar For Germany, see Witt, Peter-Christian, Die Finanzpolitik des Deutschen Reiches von 1903 bis 1913 (Lübeck and Hamburg, 1970), 63–74Google Scholar, 114–32, 304–11. For Great Britain, see Daunton, Martin J., Just Taxes: The Politics of Taxation in Britain, 1914–1979 (Cambridge, 2002), 83–94, 196–212.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For France, see Tristram, Frédéric, “Le rôle des groupes de pression dans l’élaboration de la loi fiscale de 1948 à la fin des années soixante,” in Les groupes de pression dans la vie politique contemporaine en France et aux Etats-Unis de 1820 à nos jours, ed. Garrigues, Jean (Rennes, 2002), 207–18Google Scholar. Daunton and Tristram are more skeptical about the influence of business circles on British and French taxation.

3. For a historical perspective, see Picciotto, Sol, “Offshore: The State as Legal Fiction,” in Offshore Finance Centres and Tax Havens: The Rise of Global Capital, ed. Hampton, Mark P. and Abbott, Jason P. (London, 1999), 43–79CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Palan, Ronen, “Tax Havens and the Commercialization of State Sovereignty,” International Organization 56, no. 1 (2002): 151–76CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Palan, Ronen, Murphy, Richard, and Chavagneux, Christian, Tax Havens: How Globalization Really Works (Ithaca, 2010)Google Scholar. For examples of tax avoidance by multinational companies, see Slemrod, Joel, “The Economics of Corporate Tax Selfishness,” National Tax Journal 57, no. 4 (2004): 877–99.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

4. On collective actions against taxation, see, for example, Lowery, David and Sigelman, Lee, “Understanding the Tax Revolt: Eight Explanations,” American Political Science Review 75, no. 4 (1981): 963–74CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Beito, David T., Taxpayers in Revolt: Tax Resistance During the Great Depression (Chapel Hill, 1989)Google Scholar; Burg, David F., A World History of Tax Rebellions: An Encyclopedia of Tax Rebels, Revolts, and Riots from Antiquity to the Present (New York, 2004)CrossRefGoogle Scholar; Martin, Isaac W., The Permanent Tax Revolt: How the Property Tax Transformed American Politics (Stanford, 2008).CrossRefGoogle Scholar

5. Ardant, Gabriel, Histoire de l’impôt. Livre 2: Du XVIIIe au XXIe siècle (Paris, 1972), 493.Google Scholar

6. Report by Charles Clavier, director of the Belgian direct tax administration, 1925, Archives générales du Royaume de Belgique in Brussels, T 122, no. 601.

7. Farquet, Christophe, “Le marché de l’évasion fiscale dans l’entre-deux-guerres,” L’Economie politique 54 (2012): 99.Google Scholar

8. This idea is present in a number of studies. For the United States, see Thorndike, Joseph J., “‘The Unfair Advantage of the Few’: The New Deal Origins of ‘Soak the Rich’ Taxation,” in The New Fiscal Sociology: Taxation in Comparative and Historical Perspective, ed. Martin, Isaac W., Mehrotra, Ajay K., and Prasad, Monica (Cambridge, 2009), 29–47.CrossRefGoogle Scholar For France, see Hautcoeur, Pierre-Cyrille and Sicsic, Pierre, “Threat of a Capital Levy, Expected Devaluation, and Interest Rates in France During the Interwar Period,”European Review of Economic History 3, no. 1 (1999): 38–41Google Scholar. For Germany, see Witt, Peter-Christian, “Tax Policies, Tax Assessment, and Inflation: Towards a Sociology of Public Finances in the German Inflation, 1914–1923,” in Wealth and Taxation in Central Europe: The History and Sociology of Public Finance, ed. Witt, Peter-Christian (Leamington Spa, 1987), 137–60.Google Scholar

9. On the influence of these associations, see Gruner, Erich, “Der Einfluss der schweizerischen Wirtschaftsverbände auf das Gefüge des liberalen Staates,” Revue suisse d’histoire 6, no. 3 (1956): 315–68Google Scholar; Mach, André, “Interest Groups,” in Handbook of Swiss Politics, ed. Klöti, Ulrichet al., 2nd ed. (Zurich, 2007), 359–80Google Scholar; Eichenberger, Pierre and Mach, André, “Organized Capital and Coordinated Market Economy,” in Switzerland in Europe: Continuity and Change in the Swiss Political Economy, ed. Trampusch, Christine and Mach, André (London, 2011), 63–81.Google Scholar

10. Palan, “Tax Havens and the Commercialization of State Sovereignty.”

11. Perrenoud, Marcet al., La place financière et les banques suisses à l’époque du national-socialisme: Les relations des grandes banques avec l’Allemagne (1931–1946) (Lausanne and Zurich, 2002), 44–71Google Scholar; Mazbouri, Malik and Perrenoud, Marc, “Banques suisses et guerres mondiales,” in Economie de guerre et guerres économiques, ed. Groebner, Valentin, Guex, Sébastien, and Tanner, Jakob (Zurich, 2008), 233–53.Google Scholar

12. Siegenthaler, Hansjörg, “Switzerland 1920–1970,” in The Fontana Economic History of Europe: Contemporaries Economies, vol. 2, ed. Cipolla, Carlo M. (London, 1976), 566.Google Scholar

13. For the history of the international tax law, see Picciotto, Sol, International Business Taxation: A Study in the Internationalization of Business Regulation (London, 1992)Google Scholar. Very few historical studies on double taxation are based on archives. See Graetz, Michael J. and O’Hear, Michael M., “The ‘Original Intent’ of U.S. International Taxation,” Duke Law Journal 46, no. 5 (1997): 1021–109Google Scholar; Jones, John F. Avery, “The History of the United Kingdom’s First Comprehensive Double Taxation Agreement,” British Tax Review 3 (2007): 211–54Google Scholar. For double-taxation agreements signed by Switzerland during the interwar period, see Guex, Sébastien, “Relations commerciales entre l’Allemagne et la Suisse: Histoire d’une rupture, 1930–1932,” in Switzerland and the Great Powers, 1914–1945: Economic Relations with the United States, Great Britain, Germany, and France, ed. Guex, Sébastien (Geneva, 1999), 281–86Google Scholar; Farquet, Christophe, “Le secret bancaire en cause à la Société des Nations (1922–1925),” Traverse 1 (2009): 102–15Google Scholar; Schaufelbuehl, Janick Marina, La France et la Suisse ou la force du petit: Evasion fiscale, relations commerciales et financières (1940–1954) (Paris, 2009), 316–30.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

14. On the financial turning point after World War I, see Kindleberger, Charles P., A Financial History of Western Europe, 2nd ed. (New York, 1993), 283–352.Google Scholar

15. Hautcoeur and Sicsic, “Threat of Capital Levy,” 39.

16. Eichengreen, Barry, “The Capital Levy in Theory and Practice,” in Public Debt Management: Theory and History, ed. Dornbusch, Rudiger and Draghi, Mario (Cambridge, 1990), 202–13.Google Scholar

17. Sichtermann, Siegfried, Bankgeheimnis und Bankauskunft (Frankfurt, 1957), 39–81Google Scholar, 301–29.

18. Guex, Sébastien, L’argent de l’Etat: Parcours des finances publiques au XXe siècle (Lausanne, 1998), 101–28Google Scholar; Ceni, Monique, “Guerre, impôts fédéraux directs et fédéralisme d’exécution,” in Economie de guerre et guerres économiques, ed. Groebner, Valentin, Guex, Sébastien, and Tanner, Jakob (Zurich, 2008), 177–95Google Scholar; Farquet, Christophe, “The Rise of the Swiss Tax Haven in the Interwar Period: An International Comparison,” EHES Working papers 27 (2012).Google Scholar

19. Guex, Sébastien and Mazbouri, Malik, “De l’Association des représentants de la banque en Suisse (1912) à l’Association suisse des banquiers (1919): Genèse et fonctions de l’organisation faîtière du secteur bancaire suisse,” in Genèse des organisations patronales en Europe (19e–20e siècles), ed. Fraboulet, Danièle and Vernus, Pierre (Rennes, 2012), 205–25.Google Scholar

20. Minutes of the Committee and the Council of the SBA, 1919–24, Archives of the SBA in Basel (ASBA).

21. In 1920, fifteen of the twenty-three members of the council (legislative power) and five of the nine members of the (executive) committee of the SBA were representatives of large commercial and private banks. See Sancey, Yves, Un capitalisme de Gentlemen: Émergence et consolidation de l’autorégulation bancaire en Suisse et en Angleterre (1914–1940) (Ph.D. diss., University of Lausanne, 2004), 486–92.Google Scholar

22. Between 1917 and 1920, the following permanent committees were created: Balkan, Mexico, South America, Austria-Hungary, Italy, and Germany. The last three dealt particularly with tax problems. Moreover, an expert commission was also created on American taxation. See VII. Jahresbericht der Vereinigung von Vertretern des Schweizerischen Bankgewerbes über das Geschäftsjahr vom 1. Juli 1918 bis zum 30. Juni 1919 (Basel, 1919); VIII. Jahresbericht der Schweizerischen Bankvereinigung über das Geschäftsjahr vom 1. Juli 1919 bis zum 30. Juni 1920 (Basel, 1920). On tax debates in the defense committees, see Minutes of the SBA Committee Germany, 1920–23, ASBA; Minutes of the SBA Committee Italy, 1920–21, Swiss Federal Archives in Bern (SFA), E 2001 B, 1000/1502, 56. On these committees, see also Marc Perrenoud, Banquiers et diplomates suisses (1938–1946) (Lausanne, 2011), 129–38.

23. Minutes of the second meeting of the SBA Committee Germany, 19 February 1920, ASBA; Report of the SBA Committee Italy, 26 July 1920, SFA, E 2001 B, 1000/1509, 8.

24. Some contacts were made, for instance, with French, British, Belgian, and Dutch associations about the American taxes. See letter from the SBA to its members, 18 August 1919, SFA, E 2001 B, 1000/1509, 4.

25. Confidential letter from the SBA to its members, 1 December 1920, SFA, E 2001 C, 1000/1536, 8.

26. On the link between the Swiss state and the associations, see Mach, “Interest groups.” On the cooperation between the SBA and the administration after World War I, see Perrenoud, Banquiers et diplomates suisses, 129–76.

27. On the political stabilization and corporatism after World War I, see Maier, Charles S., Recasting Bourgeois Europe: Stabilization in France, Germany, and Italy in the Decade After World War I (Princeton, 1975).Google Scholar

28. Minutes of the Council of the SBA, 18 March 1919, ASBA; Minutes of the Committee of the SBA, 1 April 1919, ASBA. On the Swiss para-statal regulation of the banks: Sancey, Yves, “Les banques et l’Etat en Suisse: Eléments pour une genèse de la politique bancaire de la Confédération (1914–1927),” Revue suisse d’histoire 46, no. 1 (1996): 81–104.Google Scholar

29. Minutes of the Committee of the SBA, 12 February and 1 April 1919, ASBA. The Swiss National Bank agreed to support the defense committees during the first years of the 1920s with an annual amount of 20,000 Swiss francs. See Minutes of the Council of the Swiss National Bank, 25 February 1921, Archives of the Swiss National Bank in Zurich.

30. Letter from the SBA Committee Italy to the DFA, 21 June 1920, SFA, E 2001 B, 1000/1509, 8.

31. VIII. Jahresbericht der Schweizerischen Bankvereinigung, 53.

32. VII. Jahresbericht der Vereinigung von Vertretern des Schweizerischen Bankgewerbes, 25.

33. Letter from the direction of the Banque populaire suisse to Giuseppe Motta, Swiss minister of foreign affairs, 22 July 1921; Letter from Robert Julliard, of the Comptoir d’Escompte de Genève, to the Federal Political Department (=ministry of foreign affairs), 6 October 1921, SFA, E 2001 B, 1000/1509, 7.

34. Letter from the Federal Political Department to Musy, 28 April 1922, SFA, E 2001 B, 1000/1509, 7.

35. Letter from the SBA to the DFA legal office, 6 April 1922, SFA, E 2001 B, 1000/1509, 7.

36. Notice of a member of the DFA, probably Hans Frölicher, 29 June 1928, SFA, E 2001 C, 1000/1536, 13.

37. On the importance of bank secrecy during the interwar years for the Swiss banking circles, see Guex, Sébastien, “The Origins of the Swiss Banking Secrecy Law and Its Repercussions for Swiss Federal Policy,” Business History Review 74, no. 2 (2000): 237–66.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

38. Letter from the DFA legal office to René de Weck, chargé d’affaires at the Swiss legation in Paris, 25 September 1923, SFA, E 2001 B, 1000/1509, 7.

39. French assets in Switzerland are estimated during the 1930s to have been between 4 and 8 billion Swiss francs. Proportionately to the Swiss GDP, this is the rough equivalent of 200–400 billion euros in 2013. Perrenoud, Marc and López, Rodrigo, Aspects des relations financières franco-suisses (1936–1946) (Lausanne and Zurich, 2002), 30.Google Scholar

40. Letter from the SBA to the DFA, 5 February 1920, SFA, E 2001 B, 1000 1509, 4.

41. Minutes of the Council of the SBA, 24 June 1921 and 13 December 1922, ASBA. See also Farquet, “Le secret bancaire en cause,” 103–8.

42. Letter from the DFA legal office to Charles Bourcart, Swiss minister in Vienna, 29 April 1921, SFA, E 2001 B, 1000/1509, 6; Letter from the DFA legal office to the SBA Committee Germany, 6 September 1921, SFA, E 2001 B, 1000/1509, 2.

43. Letter from the SBA to the DFA, 27 October 1923, SFA, E 2001 B, 1000/1509, 7.

44. Maier, Recasting Bourgeois Europe, 355–578.

45. XI. Jahresbericht der Schweizerischen Bankvereinigung über das Geschäftsjahr vom 1. April 1922 bis zum 31 März 1923 (Basel, 1923), 135. On the “fiscal restoration” after 1922 in Italy, see Marongiu, Gianni, La politica fiscale del fascismo (Lungro di Cosenza, 2005), 91–148.Google Scholar

46. For example, in 1937 the twelve members of the Vorort held twenty-one seats on the boards of the 110 largest Swiss companies. See Thomas David, André Mach, and Frédéric Rebmann, “Les dirigeants de l’Union Suisse du Commerce et de l’Industrie: Des élites au service de la coordination patronale,” paper presented at the tenth Congress of the AFSP in Grenoble, 2009, 10–12.

47. Before 1918, no minutes of the Vorort mentions double-taxation cases. The question was often discussed subsequently, particularly after 1927. See Minutes of Vorort, Archiv für Zeitgeschichte in Zurich (AFZ), 1.5.3.1–1.5.3.11.

48. Letter from the Vorort to Motta, 25 June 1928; Letter from the SBA to the DFA, 23 July 1928, SFA, E 2001 C, 1000/1536, 4. On the use of double-taxation agreements for multinational companies, see Picciotto, International Business Taxation.

49. The second date for Great Britain, Germany, and France is the date of the ratification. See Henggeler, Joseph and Henggeler, Emma, Das internationale Steuerrecht der Schweiz (Basel, 1939).Google Scholar

50. Letter from Pierre Bonna, head of the DFA, to Alphonse Dunant, Swiss minister in Paris, 20 April 1937, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1555, 15.

51. Letter from the Vorort to Musy, 3 January 1923, AFZ, 1.6.6.3.

52. This prevented Switzerland, for example, from signing an agreement with the United States before World War II. See letter from the Vorort to the Swiss Federation of Trade and Industry members, 22 July 1939, AFZ, 75.2.1.9.

53. Schnyder, Gerhardet al., “The Rise and Decline of the Swiss Company Network During the 20th Century,” Travaux de science politique 22 (2005).Google Scholar

54. On the opposition of the industries to measures against tax evasion on subsidiaries, see Conference on the Double Tax Agreement with France, 7 January 1935, SFA, E 2001 C, 1000/1536, 15.

55. Schaufelbuehl, La France et la Suisse, 320–30.

56. For example, the Swiss administration intervened with France several times between 1924 and 1928 to avoid proceedings against the company Aluminium Industrie. See letter from Paul Dinichert, head of the DFA, to Dunant, 6 July 1927, SFA, E 2001 C, 1000/1536, 13.

57. Letter from the DFA legal office to the company Eisenhut & Cie, 29 October 1928, SFA, E 2001 C, 1000/1536, 12; Letter from Peter Anton Feldscher, head of the DFA legal office, to the Swiss legation in Prague, 25 June 1935, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1555, 11.

58. Notice of the Federal Political Department, 2 June 1926, SFA, E 2001 C, 1000/1536, 13.

59. See, for example, letter from the Swiss consulate in Sofia to Maxime de Stoutz, head of the DFA, 24 July 1933, SFA, E 2001 C, 1000/1536, 12.

60. Letter from the Swiss consulate in Genoa to Georges Wagnière, Swiss minister in Rome, 10 July 1928, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1555, 7. The company is André SA.

61. Letter from Wagnière to Motta, 22 October 1928, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1555, 7; Letter from Dinichert to Hans Blau, director of the Swiss tax administration, 16 April 1929, SFA, E 2001 C, 1000/1536, 19.

62. Letter from André SA to the DFA, 1 November 1928, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1555, 7; Letter from Blau to Dinichert, 12 June 1930, SFA, E 2001 C, 1000/1536, 19.

63. Letter from Wagnière to Motta, 10 December 1929, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1553, 210.

64. Letter from the Vorort to de Stoutz, 10 November 1933, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1555, 8.

65. Letter from Bonna to Louis Micheli, chargé d’affaires at the Swiss legation in Rome, 25 September 1936, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1555, 8. The company is Inducap.

66. Letter from Ruegger to Bonna, 11 November 1936, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1555, 8.

67. Confidential letter from Ruegger to Bonna, 26 November 1936, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1555, 8.

68. On the Swiss direct investments in Italy, see Gerardi, Dario, La Suisse et l’Italie, 1923–1950: Commerce, finance et réseaux (Neuchâtel, 2007), 90–104.Google Scholar

69. Letter from the Vorort to the DFA legal office, 18 October 1940, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1553, 210.

70. Minutes Sheet of the Inland Revenue, “Switzerland,” 22 March 1929, Public Record Office in Kew, IR 40/7093b; Letter from the Federal Political Department to the Vorort, 18 May 1934, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1555, 12; Confidential letter from Blau to Georges Mer, head of the French delegation on double taxation, 13 October 1937, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1555, 16.

71. Letter from Motta to Albert Meyer, Swiss minister of finance, 22 October 1937, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1555, 16.

72. Letter from Dunant to Bonna, 15 April 1937, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1555, 15.

73. Letter from de Stoutz to Frölicher, member of the Swiss legation in Berlin, 16 September 1932, SFA, E 2001 C, 1000/1536, 5.

74. For example, see letter from Dinichert, Swiss minister in Berlin, to Bonna, 4 May 1937, SFA, E 2001 D, 1000/1553, 203.

75. Letter from Maximilian Jäger, Swiss minister in Vienna, to Dinichert, head of the DFA, 18 January 1929, SFA, E 2001 C, 1000/1536, 10.

76. Perrenoud, Banquiers et diplomates, 209–26.

77. Approximately sixty general double-taxation agreements were signed during the interwar period. See Carroll, Mitchell B., Prevention of International Double Taxation and Fiscal Evasion: Two Decades of Progress Under the League of Nations (Geneva, 1939)Google Scholar. There are currently more than three thousand tax agreements in effect. See Rixen, Thomas, “Bilateralism or Multilateralism? The Political Economy of Avoiding International Double Taxation,” European Journal of International Relations 16, no. 4 (2010): 592.CrossRefGoogle Scholar

78. Letter from Wagnière to Felix-Louis Calonder, Swiss minister of foreign affairs, 22 October 1919, SFA, E 2001 B, 1000/1509, 8; Letter from the Federal Political Department to the SBA, 24 March 1920, SFA, E 2001 B, 1000/1509, 4.

79. Farquet, “The Rise of the Swiss Tax Haven.”

80. Witt, “Tax Policies, Tax Assessment, and Inflation”; Tristram, Frédéric, “L’administration fiscale et l’impôt sur le revenu dans l’entre-deux-guerres,” Études et documents 11 (1999): 211–42.Google Scholar