I am in a real hurry; I need to know what happens to deductions if you took a break for a few months. My tax advisor has claimed the full deductions, this would be for example:

• Bike: 700 a year
• Lunch: for 220 days a year (the max. of working days)

and most importantly:

• the 1500 CHF/month expatriate allowance

Now, if I did not work for a few months but had this unbezahlten urlaub (unpaid break), we cannot claim the expat allowance right during this 'urlaub'? Nor the other deductions? In other words, must I calculate these pro rata, i.e., per month actually worked?

If anyone knows this I would be grateful, as I am already late handing in (and I do not want to upset the tax authorities by claiming too much!)

Background info:

• I pay quellensteuer
• I asked to fill in the full tax form
• I may qualify for the expat allowance (this will be a test for my employer as well as the kanton)
• The year is 2006, not 2007
• What is strange is that you have to fill in the dates for the urlaub, but the deductions are not automatically reduced. Whether this implies that the urlaub counts as working days is, however, uncertain.
  

Im afraid I cant really advise you on the specific, but would like to hear more about the "expat allowance"... I am assuming this is part of the cantonal tax rules OR a specific company tax-approved expense policy (spesereglement)... either way I thought this sort of thing had gone by the wayside quite a few years ago...

Daniel

Not in my kanton it seems (BE). I think I posted the exact details of this under "merkblatt 8." Let me check. See my post under Postdoc tax question, there is a quote and english translation of the merkblatt.

Ok, I found out.

Bike: you can claim the full year deduction (700)
Mittagessen: take 220 days divide by 12 then times actual months worked
Expat allowance: applicable for every month including months with unbezahlte urlaub; then the tax officer will decide if this is accepted

Expat allowance: you can fill it in under berufkosten, under 'weiterbuilding' but put in the kolom on the right that it is Kosten Expatriates. So 1500/month.