Hoi zäme,

I am following this forum for months now. I found many useful threads and comments and even more funny ones. Thank you all for that.

Now it is time for me to contribute to this forum.

As all of you know, one of the most asked question around here is about the income.

Thus for all of you who would like to know what the appropriate income for your position (resp. what does your team-made / co-worker earn) is, simply ask the tax authorities.

Following the Swiss tax law, everyone can inquire the taxable income from any 3rd person (you will need the name, address and date of birth of this person):

§ 122. Die Gemeindesteuerämter stellen gegen Gebühr Ausweise über das steuerbare Einkommen und Vermögen, den steuerbaren Reingewinn und das steuerbare Kapital gemäss letzter rechtskräftiger Einschätzung oder aufgrund der letzten Steuererklärung aus. Ausnahmsweise können auch Ausweise über frühere Einschätzungen ausgestellt werden.

Happy investigations ;-)

Cheers,

Jarod

It is always a good idea to read a paragraph in its entirety. The next sentence says that cantonal data protection law will continue to apply.

And I believe that what you quoted is the Tax law of the canton of Zurich only.

Indeed, the text I used is for ZH only. But other Kantons have a similar approach. And yes you can disagree. But you have to disagree in a written form. By default anybody can inquire your taxable income and taxable assets.

I was very surprised when I heard this the first time.

You know, on the one hand the swiss people are very close-lipped when in comes to income, and on the other hand you can simply inquire everybody’s income.

You can't compare taxable income with salary.
Taxable income is based on many more components than the salary.