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  3. THE BRANCH I’M SITTING ON – A TAX HAVEN IN SWITZERLAND

DER AST, AUF DEM ICH SITZE – EIN STEUERPARADIES IN DER SCHWEIZ

THE BRANCH I’M SITTING ON – A TAX HAVEN IN SWITZERLAND

By Luzia SCHMID

DSCHOINT VENTSCHR FILMPRODUKTION - as PROD

Documentary - Completed 2020

A film about the economic rise of the small Swiss town of Zug, which rose from a farming village to an internationally known trading center thanks to its cunning tax policy.

Festivals
& Awards

Zurich FF 2020
Special Screenings
Zuger Filmtage 2020
30. Film Festival Cologne 2020
Grimme Preis 2021
Nomination
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    • Year of production
    • 2020
    • Genres
    • Documentary
    • Countries
    • GERMANY, SWITZERLAND
    • Languages
    • GERMAN
    • Duration
    • 102 mn
    • Director(s)
    • Luzia SCHMID
    • Writer(s)
    • Luzia SCHMID
    • Producer(s)
    • Birgit SCHULZ (Bildersturm), Karin KOCH (Dschoint Ventschr)
    • Synopsis
    • This is a story about citizens who managed to get rich by persistently and very successfully turning their tranquil city into a tax haven. My childhood was shaped by this daring ascent, its main actors were part of my everyday life. I grew up in this tax haven, it's my hometown of Zug. Through memories of my own and my family, I tell the story of how the provincial town became one of the largest commodity trading centers in the world. Neighbors and contemporaries come forward as well. The view gradually opens up and politicians, critics and decision-makers talk about how they managed and experienced the rise of Zug. It's an amazing success story that is second to none. But with the success came the problems: dubious business lawyers, commodity traders and new citizens who succumbed to the lure of decades of tax cuts. My little hometown has become a symbolic place for the greatest injustices in the world. Few live well with the knowledge that their wealth is based on the systematic injustice of a tax haven. Every tax haven needs outside players, and it needs competition. That is why the film also highlights other communities: it leads to my new home in North Rhine-Westphalia, where tax CDs were bought and on to Zambia, where part of the tax revenues that made Zug so rich are earned. The link between these worlds is the raw material trading group Glencore, which was founded as a start-up in a small Zug apartment in the 1970s and has since become a cornerstone of Zug's wealth. Zug developed fantastically thanks to the oil crisis, Zambia perished with the oil crisis. This double perspective tells of how radical and consistent tax avoidance can lead to the end of a democracy.
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