Understanding Swiss Taxes

If you have lived and worked in Switzerland for some time and then want to move to another country, you will inevitably have to deal with the question of what happens to your accumulated Swiss social security credits.

In Switzerland, the marriage penalty refers to the tax disadvantages associated with entering into a marriage. In particular, high-earning spouses are often in a worse tax position than unmarried couples.

Inheritance tax in Switzerland is levied by the cantons, which is why tax rates and exemption amounts can vary widely. Find out here where and how an inheritance must be taxed and how the tax burden can be reduced.

If you want to buy a house in Switzerland as an expat, it depends on your residence status whether you need a permit for the purchase or not. Find out which legal regulations apply and which conditions you have to fulfill for the purchase of real estate in this article.

Pillar 3 in the Swiss pension system is used for private retirement provision. This ensures that you can maintain your standard of living in retirement. In this article we will answer the most important questions about private pension provision.

Many pension funds advertise voluntary purchases and present attractive calculation models to interested parties. What is often not mentioned is that the voluntary purchase into the pension fund is not worthwhile for everyone and does not always help with tax savings.

Switzerland is often referred to as a tax haven because its tax rates are very low compared to many other countries – both for individuals and for companies. But does this really mean that Switzerland is a tax haven?

The new regulation of the withholding tax ordinance is intended to put persons liable to withholding tax in Switzerland who are resident abroad on an equal tax footing with employees living in Switzerland who are subject to regular tax assessment there.

If you want to work, study or generally stay in Switzerland for a longer period of time, you need a residence permit as a foreigner. Depending on your nationality and the purpose for which you want to stay in Switzerland, there are different types of residence permits.

Tax deduction at source means that the employers or the insurance carriers directly deduct the taxes owed from the salary or the wage-loss replacement benefit and deliver them to the cantonal tax office.

Anyone who owns residential property can deduct the maintenance costs for it from their taxable income in their tax return. In this article, we will show you how you can best use the regulations to optimize your taxes. 

A distinction is made between ANobAG who have their employer in a foreign EU/EFTA country and those whose employer has its place of business in a third country.