Hi, there

I heard that people got married should have a bit of tax reduction. Anyone have a idea if it is true? if so, which item？

I am married but I pay the same tax rate with my single colleagues.

Depends on if your wife works, how much you each earn, and if you make combined or separate tax declarations.

If one makes more than the other, and you do a combined declaration, then yes, you will save.

Tom

Normally both incomes are added together & you file as one therefore putting you, as a couple, into a higher tax bracket and you end up paying more tax as a married couple than as two single people.

Welcome to the Forum, was that your introduction?

Quite the opposite for us. We are able to have a "honeymoon" every year on the tax we save by not getting married. It's nuts, asbolutely nuts.

I have no issue with rebates for kids and so on, but punishing a couple for getting married if they have no kids is nuts. Some friends of mine who got married got hit with an additional demand of almost 10k!

Didn't the law recently change to prevent this? I.e. getting married no longer carries a tax penalty.

Your friends are also on B-permit? How do they get the additional 10k bill when they are already taxed at source as singles?

I don't think that information is up to date. Married couples complain they would pay less tax if they separated! There is a referendum planned to change the law, but at the moment you are slightly penalised for marrying and both working.

when we got married, we paid almost 10% more on our combined income than we would have as 2 singles. It is crazy... I can't remember the exact amounts, but I do remember that in the same year, we moved from Zurich to Kilchberg and everything we gained from moving to a cheaper tax area was wiped out.

There is a lot of talk about changing this but so far it's just talk.

I was paying monthly tax at source as a single xpat, but now marrying my Swiss husband, my tax has raised 60% for the rest of the year as I am taxed as a "normal single" instead of foreigner. In 2011, we will be taxed together and my tax is going to be double a month what it was as a foreigner. DOUBLE.

I know getting married saved me from getting booted, but seeing as I still have to wait some years before I get a Swiss passport and go through a lengthy citizenship process if I want to vote, I'm failing to see the benefit of people marrying in this country. Honestly, why do Swiss marry other Swiss?? I've even heard people are divorcing before retirement because you only get 1.5 a person's retirement fund together if you retire, whereas if you divorce you both get 1X. This is madness.

Now if I would quit my job and have kids, that would be another story. But as we are both working, getting married has very much hurt us financially.

Seems like it is best if you come here as a German... you already speak the language in the north, have an EU right to work here, and you get the benefit of lower tax than all the Swiss as long as you don't get married!

..... just a life sentence!

Sorry, but you mix a lot of things into one pot and then stirr it till I feel so dizzy that i need to clarify it:

1. Tax at source is not automatically cheaper. So you do not automatically benefit from being a foreigner, you just as well have to pay more sometimes: tax at source is only easier in order to reduce bureaucraty. So foreigners simply pay the average tax, 100% "Steuerfuss" of the Cantonal taxes. Depending on where you live, Swiss people have to pay more or less than the average in taxes - Zürich city is for example 127% while some of the gold coast villaes are somewhere in the 8x%...

2. If you earn more then 120,000 you will have to make a declaration anyway - no matter if you pay tax at source or not. If you marry, you are quickly over that and have to make a declaration - even when taxed at source.

3. Sometimes the tax at source is hitting you hard by the simple approach: the tax simply takes your monthly payment and then calculates your yearly income and therefore tax - not based on the yearly income, but every month new. So if you get a 13th salary, your december tax is far too high... or a bonus? A fair share of it goes to the tax.

4. Marrying is in general a financially stupid idea if you are on two full incomes in Switzerland.

When we got married, we were over 120k and therefore started to make a declaration while we were still taxed at source. Guess what? WE GOT MONEY BACK! You can get a lot of deductions for this and that and since we paid a lot of tax at source during some "high income months"... I now know that you can make a tax declaration even if you are below 120k and taxd at source. i guess I should have done that before...

Is it canton dependant? I have never known such a thing in Geneva. However I know that you can be exempted from tax at source even with B permit and do a full tax declaration at the year end (like C permit holders and Swiss)

No idea as I never did before I got an "invite" by the tax authorities to do my declaration...

Because you live on the gold coast? Or because you got married?

If tax at source is based on the average tax rate, then you would be better off not making a full declaration as Geneva's tax rate is higher than average.

If they make similar salaries, yes.

But when one makes several times what the other does, or only one person works, then it is cheaper to be married.

Tom

Because we got married we were over the 120k back then and asked to fill out a declaration. Because we were taxed highly in the months we got 13th salary, bonus and other flexible payments, we paid too much tax - so much that the "more" you pay through marriage was more than compensated - even though I lived in an above average Gemeinde. So if I had lived at the gold coast, I'd got a very decent return.

It is based on the average of each Canton... so you pay 100% zurich tax or 100% Geneva tax - the federal taxes are AFAIK the same allover, only the Canton- and Gemeindesteuern vary greatly. So in short: No matter what canton you live in, the story is the same.

So you got taxed more for being married, but in the process you got money back because you were able to fill out a declaration.

Years ago when I was still being taxes at source, my payroll people seem to be always very capable of calculating the correct amount of tax. When I got the 13th salary, bonus, etc., sure for that month the tax spikes up, but in the following months I would pay little or no tax at all so by the end of the year, it all works out correctly. I heard now that our payroll team has been outsourced, this is not the case anymore...

I was speaking only from the experience as a single xpat living in Zürich city earning under 120k. Yes, the amount of tax increases in the months I earn 13th salary and bonuses, but of course when you have a higher salary and the percentage of tax is the same, it’s more tax money that month. However, the average per year was cheaper before my civil status changed.

When I average what I paid per month taxed-at-source compared to what I pay now per month (which is a lump sum for the rest of the year) and then what I will be charged next year, my increases from tax-at-source to other statuses are significant. Maybe I will get some of that money back in a refund next August, but I won’t hold my breath for that to happen. I was obviously paying less taxes per year than my Swiss boyfriend at his single Swiss status, and he wasn’t jumping for joy about any refunds this year.

I also spoke to my company’s tax advisor when I received tax bills after getting married, and they confirmed that tax-at-source is cheaper than regular single filing, which is cheaper than joint married filing. Since this is what the tax advisor said, and it’s following in line with my own experiences of taxes increasing once I’m married, I’m in the belief that the tax advisor is right. Maybe other people had some expensive tax-at-source... who knows. Just not the case with my company, other people working here, or other people this advisor does taxes for.

For your individual case - because you choose to live in the most expensive town in the entire canton. End of story. Yes, you will pay much more when married and if you are earning enough as a double income couple, your tax advisor should give you one single recommendation: Move out of the city. Mine did and yes, I know what I am talking about... I just moved away from Zurich to a more tax efficient place.

Here is some fun tool to play around. We save nearly 50%.

http://www.comparis.ch/steuern/steue...h/default.aspx