I have discussed the Swiss withholding tax agreements with the UK and Germany (and to follow elsewhere) at some length because of the massive abuse inherent within them, and the impact they’ll have in undermining the ability of the UK and Germany to enforce their tax law and their progressive taxation systems.

But as one commentator has said to me in an email:

The real issue behind the Swiss effort to secure a withholding is to protect Swiss bank clients from estate tax. It follows that its intended to  preserve the class structure in Europe.

The Swiss private bankers can still get the ultra rich as customers in a withholding structure because the control of major family enterprises can pass untaxed generation to generation and the capital gains and reinvestment can be concealed.

When the ConDem government is dominated by people with wealth — much of it, no doubt, proactively managed to make sure tax is not paid on it - you can see how this rings true. In that case their support for it is no more than predictable concern on their part for the tiny minority of their type who seek to dominate society at cost to everyone else in the population.

Update: in this context this article, published in the Observer today is interesting.