Hello,

I live in Zurich and have a B permit and therefore pay taxes on the source "Quellensteuer". On 2007 my total income was slightly above 200K so I had to do the declaration but I have a tax firm that does it for me. Each year I pay the maximum 3-Saule and the firm deducted the maximum possible in all other aspects e.g. transportation, etc etc. The tax on my assets is zero since I save too little.

Now what surprises me is that I still owe to the tax office something around 6300.-Sfr I checked with the tax office and they said is correct. The tax firm also confirmed the calculations to be correct but I do not understand is this normal that the tax on the source is lower than the total tax due at the end of the year? Is it a common issue?

Many thanks in advance,
Best regards,
Me

Are you married? Does your employer have all of the correct
information?

I will owe money because my employer had me listed as single
and not married.

That happened to me too when I was taxed at source.

I had a B permit at the time and was earning more than 120'000CHF. I filed my return and tought that was it.

A few months later, I got another tax bill. From what I understood, the Quellensteur goes mainly to Staat und Gemeindesteurn but then you need to pay Bundessteuer. And I think that what the 2nd payment is about.

I am no tax expert, this is just what I figured out. Maybe it will make you feel better that somebody else got an extra bill.....

Hello,

Thank you for you reply and support.

Indeed I am not married and no religion therefore I should be paying the maximum .. but still I expect the Quellensteuer to cover all my due tax or? given that I have none on assets.

Am I missing something? If needed I can provide some specific numbers e.g. I checked and I was being deducted around 2500CHF in Quellensteuer every month. That makes 30K total Quellensteuer. Plus I was paid 20K bonus from which I paid 6K Quellensteuer. Intuitively I also expected this to influence positively my end declaration because with the bonus I overpaid tax that month with respect to the whole year.

Any ideas? I have consistently have this since I have been living in CH. I always have to pay something around 5K to the tax office

What can be wrong? And yes I would feel much better if someone around my same situation would be getting similar due bills

Many thanks in advance,
Best regards

That may very well be correct. The quellensteuer is calculated to be an average of all the Gemeindes. If you e.g. live in a high-tax Gemeinde, once you hit the 120 KCHF mark you may very well end up in a situation where you need to pay more than what has already been deducted as Quellensteuer.

Apparently, many people think that tax-deducted-at-source is higher than the tax liability when filing. This is not true.

Tilia correctly points out that TDS is calculated on average tax rates. By definition, half the TDS payers are paying too little and the other half too much.

Moreover, truthful filing implies revealing global income and assets, which are then taxed too.

Thank you very much for your replies! very helpful.

Now the question would be what can be done to offset such difference or extra due tax ... my best guess is to continue beefing up the 3-Seule to the maximum or even pay an even greater amount into the 2-Säule...

Shall I be concerned throwing money at the 2-Säule? paying the known "gap" meaning if the bank holding the 2-Säule goes bankrupt then I lost all or?

The "filling the 2-Säule gap" strategy would only work for a year or two though because once the gap is filled I am back to square one ... any other ideas? e.g. move away from Zürich to e.g. Thalwil? or rent a 1x1 sqr meter room in Kanton Schwyz or in some cave in a mountain and still live comfortably in Zürich how many rich dudes do

Thanks in advance,
Best regards

We used to always pay more after we submitted the tax declaration. Once our Quellensteuer wasn't calculated correctly and we got a huge bill. Having a kid meant a deduction and a tax refund - so you could try that :-)

We were advised to get debts here (mortgage) to pay less asset taxes. All our gap years in our pensions were paid up in our first year of working here, but it wasn't enough to make a big difference.

I'm wondering how you alone can manage to spend what's left of CHF 200k after taxes each year and have no assets

It crossed my mind too.... Wouldn't it cross the taxman's mind?

Pillar-2 funds are usually in a trust structure. So it is unlikely that you suffer a total loss. However, if the trust makes unwise investments, then the assets could suffer.

The recent financial crisis has resulted in many pension trusts with less assets than their liabilities.
According to this parliamentary report
http://www.parlament.ch/d/suche/seit...ch_id=20093216
the majority of Swiss pension plans are in deficit and some only have assets 85% of liabilities.

Tax returns (at least in ZH) are analyzed using sophisticated software. High income but no assets is certainly alarmed. Such a return would be flagged and scrutinized.

Well, it crosses my mind all the time actually

I said my assets are too low as to be taxable so my tax on assets is zero but my assets actually lie around little more than 80K plus the 80K I have on my 2-Säule of course.

But is true my lifestyle is unsustainable I know : sports car, shopping trips, multiple lux holidays and going to cuba 2x per year where I ussually leave quite a few Ks to support my relatives ... that easily makes up to what's left of 200K, carpe diem!

Cheers
PS: I probably need to get a financial advisor ...

Ohhh, this might explain why I received the tax report and bill from the tax office only a week ago instead of May/September .. maybe they found my case very interesting too ... well after all, big spenders like me are the ones who keep the economy moving