Hi all

I have got a simple question and hope someone can answer to that.
We are a non married coupple living and working in Basel stadt. We are expecting our first child. The question is if we marry, are we going to pay more taxes? some of my friends say yes (double income, little detraction for the baby costs), some say no. less taxes because there will be one filing for 3 persons.

anyone has got an idea?

Start your search on the Finance Taxation Forum, for example this thread here...

dave

great. thanks for the link

Hi Sally, you need to be quite careful here, as we went through an interesting evolution regarding my son (18 mths).
Basically in Switzerland, if a child is born to an unmarried couple, it takes its name & "belongs" to the mother. We narrowly missed out on me having to adopt my own son .... yes really !! & I can assure you that that is not a bunch of paperwork, you or your man want to go through.
On the tax side, cannot say as my wife does not work, but the higher erner will get tax relief at source from their employer.

Good luck with your bun

This is a particularly useful point. It is most important that the aspect of the relationship between father and child is covered. This is not so easy in Switzerland and while all things are currently hunky-dory you need to cover for the eventualities of a split. Both of you that is!!!

As far as taxes are concerned it all depends on your incomes. If the joint income is less than around 150K and you are both earning more or less the same and you both maximise your deductions then you are going to come out about the same or slightly less in tax. If on the other hand one earns a lot more than the other or your combined income is higher than circa 150K then you are going to pay more.

the father will adopt the child and he will make sure that the condition for the child will be as if we would be married. of course if this in not going to work well, we will marry eventually (and move in BL)

one thing I am not yet clear of is if by adopting the child, will the child have his lastname and swiss nationality (since my partner is swiss) or will he-she have my italian lastname and nationality

Been in your situation (actually more complex since I was still not divorced from hubby, but child was from my partner). What happens is the father will delcare that the child is his(Vaterschaft Anurkennung) at the Civilstandsamt. The child will have your last name until you marry- then it will change just like yours.

Since you are not married, the Vormanschaftbehorder/in (sp?) or someone in the Social Amt will contact you to put on paper an agreed amount should something happen (aka you spilt up before marrying) so the child is financially protected (child support) until you do marry.

As for nationality, your child has the right to a Swiss passport and your homeland passport (my son is Swiss American ).

HTH!