It’s March, which means that it’s tax time in Switzerland. Lucky American expats like myself get to file taxes twice a year: once with Switzerland and once with the IRS. The only thing more annoying than shuffling through pages of fine print about deductions and exclusions is shuffling through pages of fine print about deductions and exclusions twice, once in a language you can hardly handle in its everyday form, much less in its tax legalese form.
Some Swiss companies deduct tax at source, meaning that your take-home paycheck roughly reflects the actual breakdown of money that you get to keep and money that you have to give to the government. That’s the system I was accustomed to in the States. Many Swiss companies, however, decide not to take out tax at source, or to only take a small amount of tax at source, and instead opt to give a thirteenth salary payment, which is then supposed to be used to pay the taxes once they are due. Sort of an odd idea, to have your monthly salary quoted to you, and then realize that you get thirteen months of salary per twelve-month year.
While I'm on the subject of salary, there’s a proposal up for general vote now that would centralize the health care system here, so that everyone would be covered under the same government provider, and insurance premiums would be prorated according to salary. I don’t see how they’ll convince anyone to vote for it. So what they're proposing is, “Let’s make everything less efficient and more expensive by removing all the competition, and let’s charge rich, influential people more money for the same level of government-provided care as everyone else.” Somehow I doubt that will fly.
On the other hand, one thing that does seem quite practical is that in Switzerland, traffic fines are tied to salary, the theory being that when you punish someone for speeding, you want them to actually feel punished, and a rich person has to pay a bigger fine before he feels as punished as a poor person. Of course, I may also be more satisfied with this application of pro-rated payments because I am never in any danger of getting a speeding ticket, given the fact that I don’t drive in Switzerland. I do, however, have to have health insurance. So I await the outcome of the law with bated breath (and bank account), since I am unable to vote here.
It’s a strange feeling, to live somewhere long enough that you know all sorts of minutiae about the place, but to have no official voice or influence. I know when the garbage is collected, I know how often the trams run, I know what day Santa comes to town, I know where to get the best fondue, I know when my favorite summer time bar is open to the public without a cover charge, but I can’t vote for a local representative or have an impact (however small) on elections regarding health insurance or speeding tickets. Taxation without representation, I should start a revolution. On the other hand, it’s not like my interests are being well represented in the States, as evidenced by the fact that expat taxes were hiked up this year, thank you, Dubya.
The last couple of years, I’ve been absurdly pleased that Europe started Daylight Savings Time a week before the States, giving us a week with more sun, but this year, the States started two weeks before us, leaving us with a fortnight of relative darkness. In retaliation, a few friends and I are heading to Rome this weekend, hoping to get some Mediterranean sun and food. To all my friends who are Stateside, you can have your two weeks of sunshine, I'll console myself over gelato at the Colosseum.
Some Swiss companies deduct tax at source, meaning that your take-home paycheck roughly reflects the actual breakdown of money that you get to keep and money that you have to give to the government. That’s the system I was accustomed to in the States. Many Swiss companies, however, decide not to take out tax at source, or to only take a small amount of tax at source, and instead opt to give a thirteenth salary payment, which is then supposed to be used to pay the taxes once they are due. Sort of an odd idea, to have your monthly salary quoted to you, and then realize that you get thirteen months of salary per twelve-month year.
While I'm on the subject of salary, there’s a proposal up for general vote now that would centralize the health care system here, so that everyone would be covered under the same government provider, and insurance premiums would be prorated according to salary. I don’t see how they’ll convince anyone to vote for it. So what they're proposing is, “Let’s make everything less efficient and more expensive by removing all the competition, and let’s charge rich, influential people more money for the same level of government-provided care as everyone else.” Somehow I doubt that will fly.
On the other hand, one thing that does seem quite practical is that in Switzerland, traffic fines are tied to salary, the theory being that when you punish someone for speeding, you want them to actually feel punished, and a rich person has to pay a bigger fine before he feels as punished as a poor person. Of course, I may also be more satisfied with this application of pro-rated payments because I am never in any danger of getting a speeding ticket, given the fact that I don’t drive in Switzerland. I do, however, have to have health insurance. So I await the outcome of the law with bated breath (and bank account), since I am unable to vote here.
It’s a strange feeling, to live somewhere long enough that you know all sorts of minutiae about the place, but to have no official voice or influence. I know when the garbage is collected, I know how often the trams run, I know what day Santa comes to town, I know where to get the best fondue, I know when my favorite summer time bar is open to the public without a cover charge, but I can’t vote for a local representative or have an impact (however small) on elections regarding health insurance or speeding tickets. Taxation without representation, I should start a revolution. On the other hand, it’s not like my interests are being well represented in the States, as evidenced by the fact that expat taxes were hiked up this year, thank you, Dubya.
The last couple of years, I’ve been absurdly pleased that Europe started Daylight Savings Time a week before the States, giving us a week with more sun, but this year, the States started two weeks before us, leaving us with a fortnight of relative darkness. In retaliation, a few friends and I are heading to Rome this weekend, hoping to get some Mediterranean sun and food. To all my friends who are Stateside, you can have your two weeks of sunshine, I'll console myself over gelato at the Colosseum.
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