I was also surprised to not find the cost of living to be that much greater here than I was used to. However, I have heard that Lausanne is the cheapest city to live in in Switzerland. Will you be working at the University of Lausanne (UniL) or EPFL? It makes a big difference in terms of salary, benefits, amount of support, etc., with EPFL having far more money to play with than UniL.

I agree, there are many great reasons to live here other than monetary ones. You should have a lot of fun.

Sorry, I don't have any idea why "income tax" and "impôts à la source" were listed separately for you, this seems quite strange. Hopefully Richard can give you an answer, he can normally answer most questions of this nature.