but that site is in german. why is not in english? why don't you send me the english link. why is english not an official language of CH. while your at it could you translate it into irish for me. Agus leis sin, Gaelige and tuaisceart le do thoil!

[this post is heavily leaden with sarcasm]

Not sure where the aggression comes from in this thread? The guy is asking for help to find tax tables on-line, as he is an expat not speaking the language (sounds fairly normal so far). He wants to find a current version of something that people have linked to in other threads (fine) and when he's done he is proposing to post it up the resulting calculator for free so that anyone else can use it too (the whole point of the EF - mutual assistance).

So why the groans and the rather snide use Google remarks?

I for one would find it very interesting to have something which is accurate and up-to-date into which I can put my details and see how changing cantons etc would impact my tax, and there are many people who post on here who request the same thing.

From what has been taken from his postings:
1) He is looking to provide a service to optimise income for contracters in Switzerland by working out whether it can be done in a similar way to the UK

2) He has been unable to find the information

3) He wants the rate tables

4) He hasn't consulted a tax expert on whether the whole things is possible or legal.

OK, so you look it for him...

I don't remember him demanding anyone spend time looking for it for him. If you know where it is already, as is quite likely someone will on here, then post the link. If you don't know, no need to waste your time.

Maybe I'm missing something but I just find it a little sad it when the old timers get aggressive with newbies who really don't seem to have done anything to deserve it. He hasn't been impolite, just tried to clarify his point when asked and is clearly NOT expecting someone else to do everything for him. Perhaps it is a reasonably specialised question he wants answering, but as a first port of call before shelling out a LOT on a Swiss tax adviser, asking on the EF if anyone can help seems like a good option to me.

'Newbie' sounds a bit like an IT recruiter. Why should 'newbie' post up any such information? If someone here did it for free, they could just post it themselves without needing 'newbie' to do it, right? If the job had value to him, as someone offering professional services, he'd pay for someone to do the translation instead of trying to get someone to do translation work for free. You know, I have some tough programming problems to work out in a language I don't know. Can I get you to do them for me? Seem fair?

Free swiss tax comparison in english:
http://en.comparis.ch/steuern/steuer...h/default.aspx

Free calculator for witholding tax at source applicable to non suisse and residents without Permit C:
http://en.comparis.ch/steuern/quelle...r/default.aspx

Withholding tax table for Geneva:
http://ge.ch/impots/system/files/doc...s_2011_bar.xls

I know that it isn't in English. I know why (because English is not an official language of Switzerland.)

Do you treat everyone who comes on the forums asking for help this way? Nothing better to do?

So...you found them, and instead of being helpful and posting links, you brag about it? Do you act this childish all the time?

1,2 and 3. Yes.

4. I have made an appointment with a consultant at Micheloud & Co. It is for next week, the earliest they could get. However, in the preliminary phone call (made in December) the structure is possible, and legal.

No not everyone, but then most people would have got the hint they were asking the question to the wrong people a while back.... however smart arse's do tend to run into the wall

Not a recruiter. Contractor. That means I'm the person recruiters call so they can place me somewhere like HSBC, MLBS, Alcatel-Lucent, Astra-Zeneca etc.

Anyone familiar with contracting in the UK would know what I am asking about. It's a fairly common practice. A contractor works for a company. The contractor invoices said company. A contractor can either go via a limited company (run themselves) or an umbrella company (who takes a large, large chunk in return for paying you as an employee, meaning you pay income tax on the full amount.)

With the limited company route, you take a small salary, and large dividends. You pay less tax. You can claim more expenses. In exchange for the time and effort, you take home more of your money.

The reason I can't simply "put different figures in the calculator" is because of the way share dividends are taxed, and how that factors into your income tax. What is needed is a purpose-built calculator. That way it will show the most efficient split between the two.

With the data, I can build one. I don't mind putting the finished version online for nothing because once I have the raw data, it will take a weekend to build and be useful for the entire tax year, unaltered. Next tax year the new tables replace the old ones and because the structure is already built, a weekends work takes just a few hours.

I'm not asking for translations of huge swathes of text, just phrases that don't come out sounding right. I didn't think asking for help on the forum would come with a fee attached.

I don't want dozens of links, at least I don't think so. The example I gave showed that one document can contain all the cantons and municipalities. So if they have done everything the same there should be one for income tax, one for corporation tax, one for share dividend tax, and either one or two for the 3 Pillars (employer and employee, or separately).

Hi, the link you gave earlier is about enough for most people (http://www.taxrates.cc/html/switzerland-tax-rates.html). The majority of contractors here will work as an employee of the subcontracting agency and would so be taxed at the rates given in that link as a normal employed person. Even above 120k B permits are still taxed at source. Above 120 as you know there is a need to do a tax return but there would be no calculator for this as what you will end up with in terms of deficit or surplus depends on a number of factors (e.g. international travel) which aren't going to be universally applicable.

The UK practice of limited company, low salary and drawing the rest as dividends is less practised out here for IT contractors because firstly large employers don't really go for it and also because you need CHF 20,000 to set up your company which makes it not worth it for the majority.

Anyway, from what I hear nowadays, the old low salary/dividends trick in the UK is so last decade now anyway - anyone who really does want to sting the country that provides their public services shamelessly does it with an offshore umbrella, the minimum wage and a loan which has no repayment date followed by umbrella company liquidation every couple of years. Out here, people have a bit more of a morally pleasing view that paying tax is necessary, both for the public services but also to help out those less fortunate than ourselves.

Thanks Valaboro, but the first two are just calculators for income tax, and I need the source material to be able to do a calculation in conjunction with share dividend. Their comparison with other cantons and municipalities is close to what I had in mind for mine though.

The third one looks interesting, and again similar to what I had in mind. It translates as "Slicing witholding tax rates 2011". When you say this is for Geneva, I take it that means just Cantonal tax, yes? Or is Federal Tax included as well?

My understanding of the 20,000 CHF is that this is held in an escrow account until the paperwork is completed, at which point it is released to the business account. No loss aside from the handling fee from the bank (200 CHF or so) and the cash is tied up for a week or two. That's how it has been explained to me, anyway.

Shameless stinging arguments will go off-topic, so I'll PM you instead.

i guess you could also get around the capital requirements by incorporating a non-swiss company with a low initial share capital requirement and make it swiss resident.

Yes, this is OT on this topic, but I;ll say that your 20,000 doesn't have to only be in cash. It can be in assets such as car, computers, camera equip. etc related to your company obviously. This is at least the way I understood it when I was considering starting a company.

Reading this thread reminds me of why I never bother with EF

The number of people who don't use this forum because of the incredible reputation it has of negative unhelpful gobshite responses and general 'eye rolling' you get when posting a genuine question is quite huge.

Maybe if the search on this site was any good and maybe if there wasn't so much waffle, people could find stuff more easily.

If you think you're a ledge, and so knowledgeable and 'integrated' then wtf are you doing on a english and not german forum anyway?

Some 'community'

This person is obviously genuinely trying to build a useful tool to figure out some tax information and all you can do is the usual EF bullshit

"have you googled that?"

Perhaps if the people who replied with such useless comments put as much effort into helping others rather than being negative, there would be a lot more users on here.

You found a year-old thread to make your point. Is it because there haven't been any recently that fit your view?

I love the "I never bother with EF" comment -- so why bother writing an eight-paragraph post to tell us you don't bother?

More that s/he is trying (vainly) to promote the Dark Side. Over there, there's no-one to give "gobshite responses and general 'eye-rolling'" because, well, there's no-one there.