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| Hello
I just moved to Neuchatel from the US (California). I was also told by tax advisors at Deloitte that I will have no US federal tax liability. I will get full exemption for the same as I would have paid the Swiss federal taxes (in my case the US and Swiss federal taxes amount to the same). However, since I have a house in California and my assignment in Swiss is only about a year, I will still have domicile status in California. In essence, I will be taxed state taxes in California on my salary and also have to pay canton taxes here in swiss. If only I lived in another state like Nevada or Illinois , I will get full exemption for both federal and state.
You have more experience than me as you have already lived here last year. I may have to refer to you next year while I file.
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The California (Safe Harbor) rule is here:
http://www.ftb.ca.gov/forms/2009/09_1031.pdf -- you have to be away 546 days. From the standpoint of Switzerland, state income tax is dealt with the same as US federal and can affect Swiss taxation of your US income at least. (The reverse is not true: California does not generally accept as binding US tax treaty provisions: our London letter carrier retired to California and while his UK Government pension is free of US federal tax (under the Treaty) he has to pay California state tax on it. But a California state employee who retires to the UK would not pay UK tax on his pension from CALPERS.)
In real life, and depending on circumstances, highly-paid individuals going abroad for a year often change their domicile to, say, New York (i.e., a high-tax state, but one that exempts from taxation most persons remaining outside the state for 11 months of the year). But that won't work if you return to California after working abroad, even if part-year tax returns are filed, unless you actually do pay substantial tax to that other state and have some genuine connection with it.