Not necessarily. For junior staff, fresh grads, HK and Singapore are much lower. For senior managers, it’s different depending on the industry. The guy in Singapore who reports to me earns more than me, simply because there is a lack of people with his specific skill sets in Singapore, but plenty in Switzerland.

Good point about asking HR - they should provide it, especially if they want to entice you to make a move...

I think you are better off in HK. However if you prefer the life style, environment, etc of Switzerland, don't hesitate to move.

It's Hong Kong rather than Singapore, and was Geneva rather than Zurich, but your point is still valid (though the recent political climate here casts some doubt over how "thriving" Hong Kong is). I have enjoyed living in both places, but after almost 10 years here, a change would be welcome. And money is just one factor, I just wanted to check my facts with the knowledgeable people here. The other factors (job, lifestyle) is more difficult to get answers to on a forum.

I agree - was referring to the salary band that would land the OP on 250 K here. In those bands for managerial positions, CH is typically higher in my experience.

Regarding health insurance many here quote exceptionally low rates for basic insurance.

This is all great as long as you are not sick, if you will actually need assistance you would be very surprised by all the things not included in basic insurance. It is not just nice 1-person rooms in the hospitals but also level of service, getting second opinion, access to certain high priced medicine etc.

In my family we always paid considerably more then minimal rate (about 1.7k for 2 people now) because we could afford it and -unfortunately- it paid off, a member of my family became very ill over 10 years ago and this private insurance is a blessing:

• Obviously private rooms in hospitals.
• We can get second and third opinions from leading docs without any complaints from insurance
• We can get MRIs and other high cost checks many times a year without visits to home doc first and trust me: this is a blessing if each visit to doctor / travel by car is -literally- very painful and dangerous experience.
• We got prescription and coverage to THC pain management drugs (Sativex) only because we had this additional insurance, otherwise we'd be swallowing cheap and horrible Oxynorm Opiodes (absolutely ridiculous)
• We got coverage to other very high price drugs only because of private insurance

And so on. In a nutshell we can concentrate on fighting the illness instead of fighting the insurance.


Always remember: If you do get sick it will be too late for upgrade. So I would advise to consider paying more for additional security.

Cheers

I wanted to check one more thing. Let's assume I do some futures or forex trading on the side, and that I net an extra 100k/year (hypothetical example) on top of my 250k income. I break most of the "5 rules" so let's also assume I am deemed to be a professional investor.

How is this taxed? Do I just add it to the regular gross income in the tax calculators, or is there a different treatment? Is it subject to all the usual OASI, disability etc contributions, or do I only apply my marginal tax rate to it? Or something different entirely?

Is there some good link that explains it?

(Let's not make this into a thread about the benefits/perils of trading one's own account!)

Thanks again!

To give some more context about where I stand on the rules:

1. Holding for 6 months -> definitely not. On one underlying, I may do 20-40 trades per year.
2. Capital gains account for more than 50% income -> they don't, so OK here.
3. Volume of transactions -> given 20-40 trades/year, it will be more than 5x initial value of portfolio, so I'm breaking this rule too.
4. Trading own money -> this should be fine unless margin trading or leverage counts as a "loan".
5. Derivatives -> well, futures are derivatives, but they're not options. Not sure about this one.


Happy to hear from others if a setup like the above counts as professional or not.