Dear Lyndon,

I am assuming that you have already found a flatmate but I am writing to you for another reason.

I am an American living in Geneva with my husband and, as we are retiring in a few months, we are looking for some way to establish residency in Wollerau because (just in case you don't know this) it is one of the cheapest places to live in Switzerland for taxes. Roger Federer is there only for this reason, but we are not quite in the same league as he is ;-) and the rents are a bit too high for us.

As we won't have a huge income, we are trying to maximize our revenues by establishing residency in a canton where the tax people will be kind to us! So, I would be willing to pay you a symbolic amount every month if we could use your address as "our address", for the tax reasons only. We are totally healthy and otherwise honest individuals, have lived in the same apartment in Geneva for the past 28 years, have no debts and we hope to travel around Europe enjoying a life of leisure, trying to decide where we will establish our new home.

I know this sounds like one of those spams we all receive from Nigeria but believe me, I am serious and only asking for an address, either in Wollerau or in Zurich. You can have a look on Comparis.ch and you will see that they have a tax calculator. Taxes in Zurich, Basel, Wollerau and Freienbach are much less than in Geneva or Vaud.

Thanks for reading this - I hope you will consider accepting and, if not, no problem. Good luck in your job in the Zurich area!

You might want to have sent that as a PM as its quite a private matter and also check his location...London.

You would have to be registered as living there etc. etc. otherwise it wouldn't be legal. Surely posting your name and address is a bit... unwise?

I've removed these posts from this Thread in adverts for housing.

At a rough guess it is illegal to have a tax address other than one's actual place of residence. However, after removing private details, I've put the posts in a new thread as someone else might ask a similar question in the future and it would be good to have the relevant Legal Reference in Swiss Law to confirm or contradict this.


Place of Residence

dear EF user, please help a total stranger break the law and also break the law yourself for a small fee

Thanks

Mr & Mrs Dumb ass

I didn't take the trouble to move this over to the Tax Forum so that folk can say how illegal it is - I'd like to know where Swiss Law says exactly that. Can anyone help?

There are enough threads in here already where 'you can', 'you can't', 'I did' 'they told me it isn't possible' fill a couple of pages...

if it was legal we'd all be doing it

Dear OP,

Please be aware that a popular traditional game played in the Canton Congo is called Righteous Indignation!™; the shopping of one's resident-in-name-only tax-optimizing Auslander neighbors to the relevant tax authorities is a variant much loved by serious devotees of the game.

Here in the Heart Of Darkness, ownership of twitching curtains and itchy dialing fingers is almost de rigeur.

This is a Seriously Bad Idea.

All the best,

MC, who gingerly walks the straight and narrow schwyzer Wanderwege...

Dont be silly. You'll have to be included in his rental contract in order to register at the geminde to show that you are living in the kanton etc. Certain gemindes (like mine down here on this side of the lake) have rules that its not possible for more than one person registered living in a 2.5 zimmer apartment. And for a single guy, that is more than enough.

You are basically asking someone to lie on your behalf in order to evade the tax authorities. Totally selfish.

I have a big house in Wollerau and I am accustomed to helping people in need


Please use my adress it will be no charge!

Hauptstrasse 15
8832 Wollerau

FAIL of the day? (or year your choice...)

The real fail here is the "symbolic amount". How pathetic! "Help me break the law to pay less tax" - if you were willing to take the risk you could take this to a millionaire businessman and charge his 20k a month for the privilege. But it's fraud and if discovered you'd go to jail.

Its incredible the tax rate is so low here already and people still want to scam.

Being serious here, may I direct the OP's attention to the following website, sponsored by the schwzyer Gemeinden of Wollerau, Feusisberg and Freienbach?

http://www.scheindomizil.ch/de/

And an article about the measures that these Gemeinden are taking to combat fake address fraud:

http://www.20min.ch/news/zentralschweiz/story/26402956



Longbyt, the question seems to touch several laws, discussed here:

http://www.scheindomizile.ch/de/inde...=69&Itemid=110

People do it in every Kanton.
In a building where a "friend" lives there is an appartment with 8 people, yes 8 different people on the door nameplates, different nationalities as well (from the sound of the names)...my friend wonders...

The key expression is: "Mittelpunkt seiner Lebensbeziehungen" as a definition as to where you should be registered. This expression comes up in most cantonal laws related to population and taxes. By registering fraudulently both you and the accomplice would be breakling the law and would be fined more than your tax savings.

As a Swiss national I cannot find the words to express my resentment at your undisguised attempt to continue to live here, benefit from our standard of living and cheat the taxman. I find your smugness quite disgusting.

I do not understand the OP wanting an address in a lower tax canton, as she is american and your US taxes will be computed as if your were living in the USA anyway.

The OP has to pay taxes in the US as well as Switzerland.

@Seren_Dipity1000: don't do it.. Rather, enjoy your retirement being honest and trustworthy.

No they won't.

OP : Your nationality says "Chicago". I am not quite sure what that means.

And yeah do it. We won't say anything to anyone*.




* conditions apply