Hi,

I got a bit of a surprise in the mail yesterday from the company which prepared our Swiss tax filings, and was wondering if anyone had a simliar experience or could offer some advice about what to do...

We used a particular Truehand 3 years in a row for our Swiss tax returns. They handled it reasonably well, and presented us with a (rather dear) bill at the end of each filing. If there were any follow-on questions or issues with that particular return, they took care of it without any further bills. So for example they prepared our 2007 taxes, sent us a bill which we paid, and any further questions from the tax authorities about the 2007 filing were handled by this Truehand without any further direct charges and without adding charges onto the next bill for the 2008 tax filing.

The same thing happened for our 2009 filing, except that after dealing with 3 simple follow-on questions from the tax authority about the filing, we informed our Truehand that we would be doing our 2010 return ourselves. They basically said "fine, and we'll be sending you a final bill for the follow-on queries we handled for 2009". Fair enough I thought, since they were perhaps being a bit "generous" not to charge me for that in previous years -- presumably with the hope that we would continue to use their services.

Imagine my surprise when I received a bill from them for over 1'300 CHF for this additional "service"! I was never told up front what I was going to be charged for this, and would never have agreed to it if I had known. Furthermore, of the 3 questions which the tax authorities asked about the 2009 return (which this bill results from), one was a mistake on the part of the Treuhand (and a very obvious and silly mistake), another was something which I did nearly all the work to explain, and the third just had to do with whether income on a partnership should have been Swiss or US sourced.

Considering that this bill is more than 50% of the cost of the entire tax preparation fee they had charged in the previous years, I cannot possible imagine what they did which warranted a bill in this amount. They didn't provide much description or explanation on the bill, and I see very little in the way of "work" which they did.

I hope to challenge them on this bill but my question is: does the fact that I contracted this company to do my tax filing for 2009 automatically imply that I have agreed to any further work they do on it? I never asked them to do it, and they never asked for my "permission" as it were, but perhaps that's somehow implied...? I reviewed the original agreement and bill for the filing but it doesn't state anything explicitly about it.

I'd appreciate anyone's insight on this.

If you signed a contract or a power of attorney (Vollmacht) with them then they can charge you for any inquirers and work done. They'll probably bill you for answering your questions about their charges too - this happen to a friend.

Well of course they can charge, more important is the question if you need to pay. Unless you have a signed contract, signed order, or something similar which is signed an mentions or refers to a specific price or fee, you can refuse to pay. They can initiate debt enforcement proceedings (which you can object to) and then they will have to file a suit and show the amount of work they did, the hourly fees assessed, etc.

It may also be interesting to know what you paid for their services to file the return in the first place....

It depends on what you asked them to do.

If they were to prepare your tax documents for you, and then you would present them to the authorities yourself and handle any follow ups, then they don't have a right to do further work without agreeing it in advance. However, if on the tax form, they were stated as your representatives and they would deal with the authorities directly, then you have handed over control to them and they will do the follow ups automatically.


These kind of agreements are difficult to control and difficult to challenge. From the rates these guys typically charge, I assume that the extra work is about 4 hours - which is not a lot if your tax affairs are complicated (you mention partnership income from US for example).

It sounds more like a "face to face" problem than a legal one - sit down and discuss the error with them. May be you can agree for them to reduce the bill be 50% and hold the other 50% over until next year where you might use them again.....something like that

(I have similar issues with housing companies - architects, electrical designers and so on - here in CH, people aren't used to being challenged on hours worked, quality of work etc so a very hardline approach tends to result in people running for the contract and fighting back, whereas a firm but friendly "I'm a bit disappointed in the way you have done this" face can often get more ESP if you are willing to compromise a little)

Unless you agree a fixed fee for the tax return service, it's normal that a Treuhand will charge for the time they worked on your taxes. As thy would have detailed records of the time worked, I suggest that you ask them for the details of the time worked on the different issues and the level of the people handling these (more senior people cost a lot more - hundreds of CHF per hour). You should be able to negotiate a reduction for the part they messed up.
As for why you weren't charged for this in other years, it wouldn't be the first time I heard of unexpected charges once notice was given for their services...

Wow a bit of a concern as I am working to identify a tax preparation service. Any advice on how to limit this kind of liability?
Alastair