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So, this will sound like a sales pitch (and it is to some degree). I work for a firm in London (we have an office in Switzerland as well). That's what we do mainly, expat US returns. Google "Getting your US tax return prepared in Switzerland" and see what you get. If it is a very simple return, you might look into turbo tax. If it isn't, you might want to get some professional help due to possible additional forms to file (as an expat). There are a list of firms down the page that can help out for a price. The only advice I can give you here is do NOT use a domestic preparer back in the US, they likely won't have any experience with filing an FBAR, any additional company tax filings (if you have companies or investments), Foreign Earned Income tax credit, etc.
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Jan 30, 2014 12:12
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Anonymous Zebra posted:So it's tax season and I have a brand new question. Do any of you Americans living here in Switzerland have any advice on how you get your US taxes done while you're here? I've been told by the university not to worry about it too much - from what I've been told, I need to fill out the normal 1040 form, as well as form 2555 and 1116. There are also a couple more forms if you have a bank account here, which presumably you do: TDF-90-221 and form 8938. It sounds like a lot of forms and I haven't looked at them yet, but I've been told that with my salary I will most likely not end up owing anything to the US. I might still end up contacting a professional service for my first time just to make sure I do it right though.
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Jan 30, 2014 12:18
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And Murphy Brownback above is right, one thing to be wary of, if you are paying Swiss income taxes, they can be slightly lower than US income taxes (after conversion to USD, etc), so you may still owe to the US... probably not a lot if you aren't on a high salary anyway, but don't be shocked if it happens
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Jan 30, 2014 12:47
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and one more, derp... if you have lower than $97,600 in Swiss earned income and not much else in the way of income, you won't owe US taxes (as the Foreign Tax Exclusion on the 2555 reduce you to nothing for the year)
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Jan 30, 2014 12:50
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starksfergie posted:and one more, derp... if you have lower than $97,600 in Swiss earned income and not much else in the way of income, you won't owe US taxes (as the Foreign Tax Exclusion on the 2555 reduce you to nothing for the year) Right, I was told it was 93000 when I got hired (at the time my salary was set exactly to that limit), but either way I was under the impression I wouldn't owe anything, but obviously still had to file. While we're on the topic of taxes, it's probably a stupid question, but do swiss taxes work the same as the US, in the sense that if I have taxes taken out of my paycheck every month, will I be eligible for a refund when I file?
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Jan 30, 2014 12:57
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The exclusion only occurs after 1 year away from the US though (as I understand it). Since I began work in Oct 2013, and have not lived/worked outside the US for a full year, I can't claim the exclusion for my 2013 taxes. Does that sound right? Also I sold my house before moving, so that poo poo is likely counting towards something for my 2013 taxes. So as of 2013 I have: - My wife/myself's income from US job - Our income from our jobs in CH - Money we made on selling the house - Dividends we make from all our IRA/other investments So it's a very complicated year. Anonymous Zebra fucked around with this message at 13:22 on Jan 30, 2014 |
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Jan 30, 2014 13:19
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Anonymous Zebra posted:So it's tax season and I have a brand new question. Do any of you Americans living here in Switzerland have any advice on how you get your US taxes done while you're here? Do you make more than US$96k/year? If no, then doing taxes yourself is trivial. If yes, then I don't have any recommendations since I make less than that. Edit: Sorry just saw your second post. Your US taxes will be complicated this time. Next year will be easy -- even if together you do make more than $192k/year, or whatever the similar amount would be for a married couple. Murphy Brownback posted:
I think you're American, so you are literally not even allowed to file if you want to. I'm not sure if non-Swiss Europeans can file. The taxes were taken out of your paycheck each month, both by the state and by the country. Most of this goes to AVS (health) and I BELIEVE this part of it you can file to get a majority of it back when you leave Switzerland. Saladman fucked around with this message at 13:37 on Jan 30, 2014 |
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Jan 30, 2014 13:32
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Saladman posted:I think you're American, so you are literally not even allowed to file if you want to. I'm not sure if non-Swiss Europeans can file. The taxes were taken out of your paycheck each month, both by the state and by the country. Most of this goes to AVS (health) and I BELIEVE this part of it you can file to get a majority of it back when you leave Switzerland. Oh, I see - yes I am American. I just assumed I'd have to file something, if not to get a refund then to at least report my income. I'll have to look into the getting it back part.
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Jan 30, 2014 13:44
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for Murphy's questions, I wish I could speak to it, but I don't know Swiss tax law, it may be more similar to the way UK tax law runs. If you are having money withheld, it is based on what they think you should pay in per your tax band. At year end if you are over or underpaid, they just adjust your withholding, so you won't owe anything or get anything back. That is if it is the same thing. for Anonymous Zebra, yes, it will be a difficult year (it might be worth paying someone to do this year and then think about doing it yourself once it gets easier) IRA, traditional or Roth? if traditional, you don't pay taxes on those until you withdraw. Roth IRA, yeah, you might have some taxes due sale of home, if you lived in and owned it for the past two years before the sale, any gain up to $500,000 if you are married filing jointly will be excluded from your taxes... remember to claim any moving expenses you can (unless the CH company paid for it all). Salary split between US and CH doesn't seem too complicated. I wish I could speak more confidently about the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion and when you are allowed to start taking it, I'd read the Form 2555 rules (which aren't fun, but are informative) as that is what I'll have to do for myself anyway. But I'll leave this from the instructions: Tax home test. To meet this test, your tax home must be in a foreign country, or countries (see Foreign country, earlier), throughout your period of bona fide residence or physical presence, whichever applies. For this purpose, your period of physical presence is the 330 full days during which you were present in a foreign country, not the 12 consecutive months during which those days occurred. If you've paid Swiss taxes since you arrived, likely you'll just get credit for them on your US tax return in the form of Foreign Tax Credits on the Form 1116. You'll still be liable for US taxes on your US sourced taxable income.
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Jan 30, 2014 13:54
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Murphy Brownback posted:Oh, I see - yes I am American. I just assumed I'd have to file something, if not to get a refund then to at least report my income. I'll have to look into the getting it back part. You should get a form very soon if not already that summarizes your tax for the year, which is by calendar. I'm at a conference but if it matters I can send a photo of what it looks like for the curious. It's just one simple page, per employer if you have more than one, then it breaks down the taxes you paid into their categories. So you do get a report, just no possibility for a refund until you leave the country, and also fortunately no possibility for you to need to pay more than what was already withheld.
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Jan 30, 2014 16:24
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Yeah, I've been really impressed by how ETH has handled withholding my taxes. The first month my paycheck said I was single and childless, and after I emailed HR back with the corrections, my next paycheck had the right amount of withholding plus bonus cash for them withholding too much the month before. The only problem is that I keep moving so the % tax seems to change every month. Now that I'm settled in Dietikon though I should finally have a consistent tax %.
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Jan 30, 2014 16:43
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Hi there, just wanted to add my two cents. I lived in Switzerland for a few years when I was in high school and my parents have now lived there for 13 years. On the social front; I found it incredibly difficult to meet people and I know that my folks basically just hung out with other expats for the first few years. There is an American expat association that do socials in Zurich, the http://www.acz.ch/ I went to one of their socials a few years back, expect 90% of the people there to be very snobbish. The expat wives will talk about playing tennis and going to spa's and the men will boast about their business success, but there were a few incredibly nice people there as well. Might be worth a visit. Apparently they have a Winter party tomorrow. The only reason I now have Swiss friends is because a. I stopped caring if people though my Swiss German sounded odd and b. because my brother has been living there for 13 years, has Swiss friends and a Swiss girlfriend and takes me with him to the local pub. 
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Jan 31, 2014 02:25
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You probably shouldn't try to buy the Halbtax at HB though, the lines there are usually a nightmare full of tourists who need 10 minutes of assistance to buy a simple ticket. Usually you can take the train to Stadelhofen, buy the ticket there, then take the train back to HB and be back in time to wave to the same guys still standing in line at the counter there.
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Jan 31, 2014 13:10
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starksfergie posted:So, this will sound like a sales pitch (and it is to some degree). I work for a firm in London (we have an office in Switzerland as well). That's what we do mainly, expat US returns. So I've done a bit of searching and I'm not sure how to judge the places that are popping up on Google. A lot of the places appear to be completely online, and are not even located in Switzerland. The first link is to a bunch of paid ads on Swiss English Forum, and the seventh link is to this very thread (ha!). Would you mind sharing which company it is you work for? Or maybe I give you my email address and you send the answer there?
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Feb 5, 2014 10:26
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The ones I know working IN Switzerland are us (Westleton Drake in Geneva), US Tax & Financial (Zurich, I think but they may be elsewhere too) are the bigger guys ($$) and Emerson Tax (Zurich) is smaller (though his fees might not be)... My boss just said there aren't any H&R Block equivalents there, which may affect how much you'd pay for a one-year return before it gets pretty simple again... There are quite a few smaller, individual firms doing it, but you'd have to do the research, we haven't dealt with them at all, hope this helps Here is a link to ours http://www.westletondrake.com/geneva/
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Feb 5, 2014 13:41
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Incidentally, if any expats are bored in Zurich, feel free to PM me for a beer or something. I've been here for a few years now and have a decent friend circle, but I was really bored the first few months, so I understand how it is when you move here. And yeah, it cannot be said often enough that the English Forum Switzerland people are huge dicks. For the other communities, I liked the Couchsurfing people, and some of my friends hang out with them regularly. I went a few times, but too many of the regular meetups would be just introducing myself 20 times a night and getting asked the same questions every time, so I kind of lost interest.
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Feb 6, 2014 14:14
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Welp, how about that Immigration Initiative...
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Feb 9, 2014 17:32
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Anonymous Zebra posted:Welp, how about that Immigration Initiative... Well, the Swiss voters have to do something incredibly stupid every couple years, to remind themselves how they're just as nit-witted and xenophobic as the rest of Europe. Unfortunately they have a direct democracy so they can actually enact problems on themselves. Edit: I actually kind agree with the point on immigration, but giving that extremely minor problem up for all the benefits of the Schengen zone is loving amazingly retarded. I imagine most Swiss don't realize this means that all of their other agreements will be invalidated, and that they will be trapped in their little island once the legislation comes about.
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Feb 9, 2014 17:57
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Please don't make generalisation. I'm from the Romandie and over here we massively voted against it. It's always the german and the italians that are strongly in favor of anything UDC spouts out. This is a very sad day for Switzerland and I hope our economy will not suffer too much from the crap that is coming.
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Feb 10, 2014 08:39
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Le0 posted:It's always the german and the italians that are strongly in favor of anything UDC spouts out. Interesting graph on the topic, in French: http://www.martingrandjean.ch/suisse-la-votation-sur-limmigration-en-un-graphique/ In English, it's percentage of people that voted yes (on the x) and percentage of foreigners in canton (on the y). Basically, the cantons that actually have a lot of immigrants mostly aren't bothered by them.
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Feb 10, 2014 09:41
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Nice article, thanks and also it doesn't surprise me the least. That is a really sad state of affairs.
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Feb 10, 2014 09:46
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The Swiss guy in my lab has been complaining non-stop all day about the vote. He is really pissed that it came through and is making fun of "all those Swiss sitting on the Alps thinking we should build a big wall." I have no idea how accurate that sentence is, but it's hilarious to here this normal calm dude get so worked up. I have to apologize to Switzerland, though, because this is likely all my fault. Every state my wife and I move to suddenly veers far-right and shoots its own economy in the foot within a year of our arrival, and I guess small countries are not immune to our curse. God forbid we ever go on a European tour, it would look like the loving Blitzkrieg by the time we finished. EDIT: I was also surprised to hear NPR report on the vote yesterday, so even the US took note of it.
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Feb 10, 2014 09:46
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Anonymous Zebra posted:The Swiss guy in my lab has been complaining non-stop all day about the vote. He is really pissed that it came through and is making fun of "all those Swiss sitting on the Alps thinking we should build a big wall." I have no idea how accurate that sentence is, but it's hilarious to here this normal calm dude get so worked up. Well to be honest I'm the same as your colleague. This vote is a disgrace and as shown by the article that was posted earlier its actually the cantons with less than the average of strangers that voted massively yes while the cantons with the most actually voted against the initiative. Also you can see a great example of what we call the "Roestigraben" which means "Barrier of Roesti". The Swiss Romande nearly always vote the opposite of the Swiss German part. Le0 fucked around with this message at 10:40 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 10:29
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Anonymous Zebra posted:because this is likely all my fault. You're a foreigner so of course it's your fault!
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Feb 10, 2014 13:42
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peak debt posted:You're a foreigner so of course it's your fault! Don't be silly, everything is the fault of foreigners and [people from canton you dislike]. I was recently in a bar in downtown Zurich and a Swiss guy started talking to me. The start of the conversation was basically: "Where are you from?" "Slovenia." "BAH! ... Well, at least it's not Basel."
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Feb 10, 2014 15:19
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My understanding of the complexities of this issue are limited by only living here 5 months (although the initiative itself probably doesn't address these complexities either), but if one of the main concerns with foreign immigration was wages decreasing due to immigrants accepting lower wages than native Swiss, wouldn't a minimum wage law be a more effective way of solving the issue instead of pissing off the economic bloc that surrounds the country on all sides? EDIT: Oh gently caress me, I just read that this poo poo could effect the joint-research agreements between CH and the EU. I'm real glad I just read up on all those Euro funding sources for grants & research. Anonymous Zebra fucked around with this message at 18:10 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 17:56
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Le0 posted:Please don't make generalisation. I'm from the Romandie and over here we massively voted against it. Anonymous Zebra posted:EDIT: Oh gently caress me, I just read that this poo poo could effect the joint-research agreements between CH and the EU. I'm real glad I just read up on all those Euro funding sources for grants & research. Wipfmetz fucked around with this message at 18:59 on Feb 10, 2014 |
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Feb 10, 2014 18:56
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http://www.microgis.ch/fileadmin/illustrations/news/MGimm1.png I don't think it is so much a German/French/Italian divide amongst the voters, more a city/countryside split. Zurich voted against the restrictions, the farmers voted for them. The englishforum has good information in it but only look at older posts. The place is full of bored housewives and angry expats who hate English/Americans/Indians/life.
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Feb 10, 2014 19:47
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Swiss English Forum is really obnoxious right now. Don't read it for another half a month (never read that loving forum).
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Feb 10, 2014 20:35
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What I've always found interesting was that the rural Ticinese dislike Italians, and the rural Swiss Germans dislike Germans, but the rural Romandians don't dislike the French. This is very clear from the alternate map on Martin Grand-Jean:  It's mind-numbing. I mean this won't affect me at all, but it will affect my Swiss girlfriend. It's like amputating your foot because you got a bee sting on your toe. That said, the Conseil Federale is overwhelmingly against the initiative (only UDC supports it), so I have to wonder if they won't try to stonewall the popular vote somehow. I also don't think the vast majority of people who voted for it realizes that if they pass a law to keep Europeans out, that it goes both ways and they won't be able to work in Europe anymore. My girlfriend was in Bern last night (coincidentally) and missed her train due to protests blocking the main streets, around 7:30pm.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:52
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Anonymous Zebra posted:EDIT: Oh gently caress me, I just read that this poo poo could effect the joint-research agreements between CH and the EU. I'm real glad I just read up on all those Euro funding sources for grants & research. Unless this really snowballs, this won't affect getting European grants from the ERC or whatever. Switzerland has a 0% probability of leaving the EFTA, unless more than 50% of the population here wishes their country was more like Haiti or Cuba. E: Thank God the United States isn't a direct democracy.
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Feb 10, 2014 20:57
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Wipfmetz posted:So it's german swiss hating german foreigners, and italian swiss hating italian foreigners? In part yes. Oddly enough the Romandie while we did not vote for this Initiative we are known for not being that fond of France  However we put the interest of the country first rather than voting against strangers.Bruxelles just started talking about this fact and said they will probably freeze research funds to the EPFL (They get a poo poo load of money from the EU apparently) and also block Erasmus which is sad for education in our country...
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Feb 11, 2014 07:33
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Le0 posted:Bruxelles just started talking about this fact and said they will probably freeze research funds to the EPFL (They get a poo poo load of money from the EU apparently) and also block Erasmus which is sad for education in our country... Source? I work at the EPFL and spoke with a fairly high up staff about it yesterday (in passing; was meeting coincidentally) and literally not a whisper about this. I could not find anything about this searching in French or English either. There is absolutely zero chance they will axe existing projects, e.g. Blue Brain Project, unless they want to shoot themselves in the head in response to the Swiss shooting themselves in the foot. But, hey, they're in Belgium, so just maybe they'd do that. E: Also considering Swiss could pull in European funding prior to 2008, when Switzerland joined the freedom of movement they just rejected, it seems that this point, if you do find a source, is speculation by someone not involved or aware of with science-related politics. Saladman fucked around with this message at 09:47 on Feb 11, 2014 |
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Feb 11, 2014 09:42
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Saladman posted:Source? I work at the EPFL and spoke with a fairly high up staff about it yesterday (in passing; was meeting coincidentally) and literally not a whisper about this. I could not find anything about this searching in French or English either. There is absolutely zero chance they will axe existing projects, e.g. Blue Brain Project, unless they want to shoot themselves in the head in response to the Swiss shooting themselves in the foot. But, hey, they're in Belgium, so just maybe they'd do that. I don't know if you can read french but here is a statement just posted by Patrick Aebischer which is the boss of the EPFL. I guess you know who he is  http://www.rts.ch/info/suisse/5602490-la-menace-sur-les-fonds-europeens-de-recherche-inquiete-patrick-aebischer.html quote:Freezing the European research fund after the vote on immigration would be very problematic. The president of the EPFL Patrick Aebischer said during an interview for RTS Le0 fucked around with this message at 10:12 on Feb 11, 2014 |
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Feb 11, 2014 10:06
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Welp http://www.thelocal.ch/20140216/eu-freezes-swiss-research-and-student-exchange-funds quote:In a tit-for-tat retaliation, the European Union has frozen research grants for Swiss universities worth hundreds of millions of euros and suspended the involvement of Switzerland in the Erasmus student exchange programme.
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Feb 17, 2014 10:13
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Yeah that sucks. Great voting Swiss people  What is even more depressing is that apparently 70% of Swiss people would like for the EU bilateral agreements to continue... Think before you vote godamnit. Le0 fucked around with this message at 11:35 on Feb 17, 2014 |
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Feb 17, 2014 11:30
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Le0 posted:I don't know if you can read french but here is a statement just posted by Patrick Aebischer which is the boss of the EPFL. I guess you know who he is I missed this (and your post) but read basically the same thing in last week's L'Hebdo. We've been proceeding with business as usual in my lab (which gets ERC funding), pretty much everyone thinks this will be worked out before it affects anything serious like the Human Brain Project. If it doesn't, what a pain in the rear end, and I guess it will go back to the way it was before, where Swiss couldn't be PIs in grant applications, and had to get some European to sub-award them in a collaborative effort. I'd probably jump ship in that case. E: I wonder what happens if PDC or Les Verts or someone puts up a initiative "Should we rescind our bilateral agreements with all European countries allowing shared research funding, relaxed border controls, and freedom of movement?" and the population votes against it. Does Swiss law explode? It's too bad the UDC is the only party that's even remotely competent at getting its message across for votes. I live in Lausanne — admittedly not exactly a swing vote area — but I see about 10 posters from UDC every time I see 1 from PDC or Les Verts or whoever. Saladman fucked around with this message at 17:35 on Feb 20, 2014 |
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Feb 20, 2014 17:18
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Saladman posted:I live in Lausanne — admittedly not exactly a swing vote area — but I see about 10 posters from UDC every time I see 1 from PDC or Les Verts or whoever. Well, you've already observed why that is the case. The left owns Lausanne, no need to shell out for a ton of posters. Same here in Bern.
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Feb 20, 2014 23:30
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So I posted this tax question in another thread, but figured I'd drop the turd here too. So I have a random question about the Foreign Earned Income Exclusion. For the last few months I've been under the assumption that I cannot utilize the FEIE for my 2013 taxes because I was not a resident of Switzerland for the entire tax year. However, today I did a short 30 minute consultation with a big-wig tax attorney and HE told me that since I have 3 months (1/4 of the year) of foreign income that I simply divide the exclusion amount by 1/4 and only exclude 1/4 of the yearly maximum ($24,400 in this case). This seems contrary to everything I read, but to make matters worse the actual tax attorney is too expensive for me and he suggested I just use a basic tax software to complete my taxes since they are relatively simple. This puts me in the odd position of doing my own taxes and being unsure if I should follow the advice of an actual tax attorney over what I read on the internet...even if what I've read seems abundantly clear and contrary to his suggestion. EDIT: Actually a lot of things he told me seem to conflict with everything I've read. He also said that if I make more than $120,000 a year in Swiss income that I also need to fill out Swiss taxes in addition to the "tax at the source" I get from being a B permit. (Note, ignore this part of my post, I'm more concerned about my first question) Anonymous Zebra fucked around with this message at 00:45 on Feb 26, 2014 |
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Feb 26, 2014 00:33
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Anonymous Zebra posted:So I posted this tax question in another thread, but figured I'd drop the turd here too. Partial year is pro-rated. The amount you can exclude is based on how long you've had your tax home in Switzerland. I think your tax attorney was correct http://www.irs.gov/Individuals/International-Taxpayers/Figuring-the-Foreign-Earned-Income-Exclusion see part year exclusion King Metal fucked around with this message at 03:28 on Feb 26, 2014 |
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Feb 26, 2014 03:25
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