* Around 59 percent of voters reject government-backed proposals
* Swiss face international pressure to phase out low tax rates
* Government needs to come up with new approach (Adds provisional result, political reaction)
By Michael Shields
ZURICH, Feb 12 (Reuters) - Swiss voters clearly rejected plans to overhaul the corporate tax system, sending the government back to the drawing board as it tries to abolish ultra-low tax rates for thousands of multinational companies without triggering a mass exodus.
Most Swiss recognised the country needs reform to avoid being blacklisted as a low-tax pariah. But new measures proposed to help companies offset the loss of their special status breaks had created deep divisions.
Just over 59 percent of voters - who have the last word under the Swiss system of direct democracy - opposed the plans, which the country's political and business elite embraced under international pressure, provisional results on Sunday showed.
Finance Minister Ueli Maurer said the government now needed time to analyse and address with cantons the situation that business leaders called a dangerous legal limbo.
"It will not be possible to find a solution overnight," Maurer told a news conference in Bern, adding it could take a year to come up with a new plan and years more to implement it.
In the meantime, companies might stop investing in or even quit Switzerland, he said. He played down the risks of blacklists, saying the more immediate danger was that individual countries would start double taxation of Swiss-based companies.
The European Commission said it would comment on Monday.
Switzerland has been in the firing line of the European Union and OECD club of rich countries for years over the special tax status that cantons give foreign companies. Some pay virtually no tax above an effective federal tax of 7.8 percent.
Switzerland agreed with the OECD in 2014 to abolish by 2019 the special status, which has been an attractive perk for around 24,000 multinationals looking to lower their tax bills. That provision will now remain in place past the original deadline.
The government says such special-status companies employ 150,000 people and contribute half of federal corporate taxes.
(Graphic on tax rates: http://tmsnrt.rs/2kdi2Ow)
ARROGANCE AND HAUGHTINESS
To offset the blow, the government had proposed tax breaks on research and development in Switzerland, profits from patents developed there and deductions for excess company equity.
In addition, many cantons say they would reduce corporate tax rates for all companies to reduce the fiscal burden and dissuade multinationals from leaving.