Hi,

What would be the rough comparison between french and swiss taxes for a family with income in relatively high income bracket (but salaries, not busness profits) and with one or two kids? When I started to look at swiss taxation my first impression was that the taxes are quite low, but after reading a few threads and taking into account this and that, the rate jumped from original 10-15% to actual 25-30%. Which makes it not the same but much closer to France. Am I right? I do understand that there is a lot of specifics and dependance on canton, but what is the situation on average? I would appreciate any comparison between Switzerland and France in financial terms.

Another question, if you who live in Switzerland could get roughly the same salary in France, would you move? In both cases, brutto and netto. And why? I do not mean Brittany under France, but to have a fair comparison with the surrounding, let's say, to Annecy, Grenoble or Jura?

Thanks a lot, I hope that I will one day be as useful for that forum as it was for me.

Marvin

Dunno myself but check here:
http://geneva.angloinfo.com/

More precisely:
http://geneva.angloinfo.com/information.asp#13

Hi Marvin,

As you move into the high income bracket then the Swiss system has tax advantages and they are substantial. If you are talking about a family income of ca €150k and you have kids then there is not much in it.

One thing you have not mentioned is education. France has an excellent (albeit French) education system. Switzerland on the other hand does not. Depending on your age International Schools might be the only option and they are terribly expensive in Switzerland so not a problem if the employing company is paying but a big additional bill if you need to pay.

I would strongly suggest trying to weigh up costs and benefits and not just taxes - the cost of living in Switzerland is substantially higher than in France. The pension system in Switzerland is substantially better than in France. And so it goes on.

Thank you, Richard. In our situation, if both of us work (big "if" with finding two jobs in Switzerland, I know), we should get total above 200K for sure (not boasting, just both my husband's and mine specializations are in finance, and there, if you work, you earn quite a lot).
As far as I understand French tax system would use progressive scale and Swiss is much more lenient, right? If you could just direct me to some website (not in German :-0) with detailed description of taxation, I would be interested to read it!

And I've thought that the education in Switzerland is not that bad, running from US to educate our son (now 5) is one of the reasons to choose Switzerland in the first place. Perhaps, this is a subject for a separate thread though, but any comments are really welcome.

Thanks again!
Marvin

I do not know of any site explaining the swiss tax system better than this one. You will find plenty of threads... I also once promised to do a thread on how to fill in a tax return and I will have the time to keep that promise over the next day or two.

Basically you can be much more imaginative with the Swiss system in what you can deduct. Furthermore the rate of taxation is appreciably lower. What you miss though are the hidden taxes such as health insurance, property insurance, Swiss rental prices etc. Ultimately the equation should balance out on quality of life and not necessarily on available income - but that is another story...


Another thing not to forget is the pension schemes in CH. These are monies that you will ultimately see which cannot be said of the French system...

I agree with Richard re this forum being your best resource, but you may be interested in the following analysis:

http://www.freedomandprosperity.org/...ss/swiss.shtml

Their home page quotes Dick Armey, so you may know already which way they lean.