Doubt you can do it in English, but ask your local tax office to go through the forms with you to help you fill them out. I know Fribourg canton used to run special evenings when people could go along to the meetings and get advice/help to do this. Once you’ve done it and know what needs to go where it’s not difficult even if you don’t understand the language very well.
You just have to enter your base numbers and it does all the difficult stuff for you.
They even have English language instructions here .
The US taxes are a different matter, and surprisingly time-consuming for expats. Though not particularly complicated, the forms are time consuming if you have to compute tax credits and alternative minimum tax. (A part-year filing is also messier but OP's join date suggests that's not an issue here.) Calendar, deductions, etc. means everything has to be double- or triple-computed just for the US, and you can reuse little of your Swiss tax preparation. You may be looking at dozens upon dozens of pages. Not to dwell into politics, but depending on how much of the current US government's spending plan passes, I would expect changes in the tax code and extra paperwork, even if expats are not eligible for most new programs.
All in all, better to consider the value of your time before you dig into this.
If you are really feeling lost perhaps consider paying a pro for the first year, then use last year's return as a template going forward.
US taxes are a whole 'nutha can o' worms. There is no way we would ever attempt those on our own, we happily pay the pros. The final return is measured in kilograms* - it would consume waaaaaaay too much of our time to be worth it. And the fear of the consequences Uncle Sam imposes for even innocent mistakes would keep me up at night.
Yes, professional US tax preparation can be expensive - but for us, a worthwhile investment.
Unlike the IRS, when you make a mistake on your Swiss taxes there are no draconian penalties. Usually it's just a chat with the tax guy to discuss how to file an ammendment to the return.
* I kid. But not by much.
A guy at the tax office in Lugano showed me the first time.
Tom
[ agree with you wholeheartedly, however paying someone 600 chf to do my taxes when I actually owe nothing hurts!!!!! I just use an app and cross my fingers that I'm too small a fish for them to go after me for any innocent mistakes...
It's pretty easy. Takes a little while the first time, to understand everything properly, but following times will be routine.
since in the USA health insurance premiums are directly subtracted from our employer, while in Switzerland we pay health insurance premiums out of pocket, can we subtract health insurance premiums from the Swiss gross salary we have to declare on the US tax form?
Thanks!
You are better off using the foreign earned income exclusion (FEIE) and the housing exclusions to reduce or even eliminate your taxable income. See IRS Form 2555 and its instructions.
Quick maths that might help you draw a picture: Maximum FEIE is 108,000 USD Maximum housing exclusion is 32,900 USD unless you live in Zurich, Bern or Geneva, then it is higher Standard deduction is 12,550 USD for single or married filing separately Total that you can deduct from your gross income without much effort: 153,450 USD
In other words, if your gross income is 153,450 USD or less, then you'd not owe any US income taxes. But you still have the joy of filing the paperwork.
If your gross income is higher than 153,450 USD you might be able to use other techniques to reduce the taxable amount further, such as the foreign tax credit and itemizing deductions. At that point, it will be worth paying a professional to get all the credits/deductions and paperwork right the first time.
But since you asked about medical expenses, these fall under Schedule A. You're only allowed to itemize the amount of medical expenses that exceed 7.5% of your gross income. So if you make 160,000 USD, you could only deduct medical expenses above 12,000 USD. The first 12,000 don't count. My premiums plus franchise plus co-pay are about that amount, so I couldn't deduct any health expenses.
since US health insurance premiums are paid pre-tax and therefore removed directly from the taxable income, I thought we could do the same with Swiss health insurance premiums and subtract them directly from the Swiss gross income, rather than filing the Schedule A form.
While rent is a qualified housing expense, mortgage payments are not.
Maybe mortgage interest counts somewhere else on all those stupid forms. I wouldn't know, don't have a mortgage here in CH.
Eigenmietewert is not considered a property tax. So no deduction available there.
And of course, currently (and for all the time we have owned) rates are so low that we are paying peanuts, so the mortgage interest rate decuduction, for us, is meaningless.
The only real help we'll get is that the same exclusion for capital gains on the sale of a property is also allowed for the sale of foreign property. So when we sell we can deduct $500K ($250K if single) from the profit realized on the house. The amount of profit over that is charged at long term capital gains rates, which are (for now!) lower.
But another gotcha - you have to figure in currency exchange, based on the rate on the day you bought and the day you sell. That can change the equation...
Anyhoo... I'm certainly no expert. Hopefully someone who is will chime in. But my takeaway: US citizens should also consult a tax expert when buying or selling property abroad.
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The killer for us, the reason our US tax burden is so high, is the way that the US treats Pillar 2. As far as I can tell, the recent changes have not helped. I've yet to find a tax expert who can suggest any legal remedy for that pain.
Has anyone tried this for filing their US taxes by themselves?
I'm really wanting to take control of doing this myself. It gets very very annoying to pay someone to help me pay taxes, it's just unbelievable to me. I would like a software that makes it straight forward, after spending 2k on tax return preparation for US and CH, enough is enough.
https://www.zh.ch/de/steuern-finanze...-personen.html
There you will find the How to Fill in Your Tax Return pdf file. For some reason link to the file directly throws an error when you try to open it. Click works.
US taxes... Oh goodness. Where do I start.
I use taxAct - I don't recommend them. But given they have all my previous tax information I keep using them. Had to get a website to generate a US number just so I could log on to my account this past tax year. I wholeheartedly do not recommend them. The good news is you can vote for your next president to represent you in the US in the state of.... Oh wait - you are an expat, your vote doesn't count but you get proper taxation with no representation. Let's see if I have another kid, they get the passport and then I'll abandon mine.
I used to do my UK taxes as well, those were also amazing to do with the simple HMRC software.