SAMEDAN - Clerks in Grisons and Valais opened spreadsheets after voters allowed a new cantonal approach to taxing second homes. Tourism mayors want revenue. Tourism boards want the owners to keep coming and spending in the butcher's shop.
The old imputed rental-value system was a joke that only tax advisers understood. The new one will also be a joke, they suspect, until the first invoices land.
A village arithmetic
Many Alpine communes have more beds in empty chalets than children in the school. Taxing the chalets harder is popular until the bakery loses its winter customers. That circle is not new. The legal tool is.