Dunno', but yeah OP even tells the story in a convoluted way. I guess that on 23/06/2021 he simply deregistered from the municipality (as if moving within Switzerland), only announced departure from Switzerland in August when he also handed back his B permit. In the end no municipality claimed the taxes for July so it doesn't appear on record.
This statement could be confusing. I went in the office until April, yes. I received a salary until July inclusive. Just for clarity.
The person who did the declaration for me used the simplest approach possible: he just took the final year statement from my employer and put those data in the tax declaration.
Short answer: 7 months
I only had 7 pay slips for 2021 in CH , covering Jan to July.
at the moment this is also my assumption,, considering the comments from the tax office.
I got lost in your calculations, specifically what you mean for 6k, NOV, but I believe we reached the same conclusion for the part in bold.
In short, if the tax residency is over in June....then I assume they are able to ignore the salary of July completely, including the withhold tax . Recovering the withhold tax would be another matter, but to be honest I don't care about that at the moment and probably I will never do . I will not update the tax return of the other country. That one has been already closed. Nor I want to speculate on the situation....
The other option I hope for ,in case they don't want or can't update the salary reference from 7 months to 6 months, is that they allow me to send another tax return where I specify a 6 month salary, with 6 months withhold tax....and they apply the calculation again.
Thank you all for all the food for thoughts. I appreciate the debate and taking your time to understand the situation.
I believe I collected some good points to raise question to the tax office.
I find it quite curious that people here keep saying that you wouldn't have to pay any taxes on the money paid out in July, just because you left CH in June (despite not deregistering until August). I left Switzerland in Jan 2022 and received my yearly bonus for 2021 in March 2022 while in the US. I had to pay taxes on that bonus in Switzerland (and the US, though Swiss taxes were taking into consideration) and to calculate the tax rate, they even included my previous monthly salary. This is Zug tax code, but apparently, income that was earned while in CH is being taxed here no matter when it is actually paid out.
Now, to OPs case: Are you saying that
A. the tax deducted from your final paycheck was not shown on your Lohnausweis and hence the tax authorities want more money?
or
B. Adding up all the taxes from your monthly payslips matches the amount of taxes listed on the Lohnausweis. However, tax authorities report a lower number missing the July tax contribution?
Tax laws are complicated, especially moving abroad mid-year. What kind of sum are we talking about that they are asking for? It might very well be worth to have an accountant handle this.
Don't assume, search for DTA between Switzerland and the other country. It's very rare to let foreigners earn money on your soil without paying a penny of taxes. The Double Taxation Agreements usually choose one of the two:
1. you would pay the tax only in Switzerland for the income earned in Switzerland
2. you pay the Swiss tax but you can deduct that amount from a tax due for that income in the other country
Keep in mind that you earned the salary in Switzerland, even though you were on vacation abroad.
To quote Adam Savage: Well, There's Your Problem!
The tax office taxes you based on the declared income. Which is fair and correct. Unfortunately, the process to fix such errors is bound to certain formalities and time limits. At one point the numbers become final and can't be changed anymore. I do not know at which point in the process you are. But anyway, we now have a different story and a better understanding why there is a confusion. The problem is not the treatment from the tax office but your very own filling error. Accordingly, the title of this thread should not be "Partial Mistake from tax office" but "I and my tax preparer did a partial mistake when filing taxes".
PS: NOV = Nachträgliche ordentliche Veranlagung == Subsequent Ordinary Tax Return. The process when you file a regular tax return on tax at source.
It make sense.
Don't forget that they admitted an error as well(for June), They also put their mistake so the title is not completely wrong . Anyway I agree that the big discussion here is about July .
From my point of view there are still some assumptions open though.
For example my B-permit was returned in August and probably I can play with that aspect. At that time, I informed the city hall that I would have had an address abroad for some time keeping my B permit active and with a Swiss income. That resembles some sort of "remote working" for a short time and I have no cluet what the legislation says about that.
The point were we stand is that I should pay the taxes, I received the bill, and if believe something is wrong in the form/bill I received for 2021 I have 30 days to inform them. But I don't know if I can change the declaration or just point to calculation errors. That is something I will try to understand.
Answer to Swisspea comment https://www.englishforum.ch/members/18335-swisspea.html
wow you raised a lot of points
I would say so but we are throwing too many assumptions in the air. The tax office will give their interpretation that might be wrong, so the only way to challange that is to hire a lawyer.
Perhaps that is not necessary if I just manage to find some kind of solution with the tax office, for example:
- declare my income only for 6 months instead of 7 (I don’t care if the tax at the source withheld in July is lost, it would be taxed by another country after all)
- let them tax me for 7 months
- other options proposed by the tax office as long as they don’t double tax me.
I thought quellensteuer and withholding tax were the same thing… and when I wrote withholding tax I always meant quellensteuer.
I just google it and it seems the same concept to me. The company payed the taxes on my behalf.
My employer didn’t know I left the country. I thought they did not care. I went abroad to look for a job. I could be back any time and use my RAV (which I didnt use)
I would not be so sure about that. I don’t know for CH, but for some countries the tax residency is determined with some criteria defined by the law and the center of your interests/business. In my case the situation was a in a Gray area because I still had an income in CH, but I didn’t have an address in CH … in July because my rental agreement was teminated at the end of June.
For me it makes no difference, as long as I don’t have to pay more taxes than required.
I simply would argue that it should be either corrected according scenario #1 or according scenario #2. Let them make the choice, but show both possibilities how it could be fixed. Specially point out that the taxable income period and tax at source taken into account shall match, and not be two different periods, as otherwise the income will be taxed twice.
Herein lies a problem - Quellensteur "Tax at source deducted from people working in Switzerland and tax resident in Switzerland, is not deducted at the same rate as 'Withholding tax' which is held from someone working temporarily in Switzerland but taxable although both are held 'at source' the withholding tax is what is taken from someone earning money in Switzerland who is taxable in another country.
Unfortunately a lot of websites and even search use 'Withholding tax' as a translation for 'Quellensteuer'.
The Australian equivalent system calls one 'PAYE' or PAYG' (pay-as-you-earn or pay-as-you-go) and the other Withholding tax.
Typically, Quellensteuer (pay as you go) is variable, depending on the declared income and family situation, and then your employer also needs to pay the compulsory insurances. The actual tax rate is typically 15-20% maybe (assuming salary under 120K).
For someone whose tax residency is somewhere other than Switzerland, who works temporarily in Switzerland, the withholding rate is 35%!
OK ???
so at least the OP can easily verify which tax was withheld from the last pay slip
Please a link to this. All I can see on admin.ch and the cantons websites is that in both of those cases Quellensteuer/Tax at source is used, not Verrechnungssteuer/Withholding tax.
Quellensteuer is the term mentioned in the pay slips.
Side notes:
I made the sum of all the payslips and it matches the sum of the yearly summary.
The Quellensteuer visible in the tax bill is exactly the sum of the first 5 months ( because the Quellensteuer for June and July were not taken into considerationin the tax bill).
After sending an email asking for several information I got the following feedback:
- they(tax office) are only going to consider the day I left the country. That information came from another office.
- they don't care about the tax at the source that was payed in July.
- the gave me more info about how to raise an objection and how the dialog works in that case (se message below)
I will raise an objection asking to modify the yearly income from Jan do June (instead of Jan July).
To be honest I am tempted to push to get Jul'y tax at the source back.....but even if those money are lost in space, they went for a good cause....more or less.
You got a departure letter from the gemeine stating your date of departure. Was this 23/6? If so indeed the tax office is doing their job.
On any case you can try to contest and make your care but if you had indeed left CH then what is your argument?
I will ask the tax office to consider a 6 month income instead of 7 (which i declared initially). I just adapt to what is explained in the message above.
A summary of my moves:
My departure was 23/6 , my rental agreemement in CH ended 30/06 .
I returned my B permit in August, and I also filled a form "Wegzug Ausland" where I stated the date of 23/6.
I received a confirmation document with 2 dates.
Stating :
Abmeldebestätigung :
Wegzugsdatum 23.06.2021
Abmeldedatum 04.08.2021
For some reason the date passed to the tax office from the municipality was the 23/06 (not sure it is the correct one) and that caused July's withhold tax to become , apparently, a free donation to the tax office in CH that cannot be recovered. After all I should have payed the taxes on July's pay slip abroad so it is not a loss....until the tax office abroad realises that, which is quite unlikely....or at least I hope so.
The Quellensteuer deducted in July won't become a free donation to Swiss tax authorities. For my 2021 return, they forgot about 18K Quellensteuer I paid before switching to a C permit. My accountant handled the communication with the tax office and of course they corrected the tax invoice.
This sounds to me like they suggest you that the income earned after deregistration should not be part of the assessment. Then, yeah, it looks like it was your (accountant) mistake to include the income on the declaration which you need to correct.
Well, tha's what they said . In my case I left the country. Were you in the same situation?
UPDATE:
- sent the objection letter to the tax office last Monday.
- while they still have to receive the letter, Tuesday , out of the blue, the tax office changed his mind and decided that they will refund the taxation at the source for July ....
....must be the Christmas mood.
- I told them that the letter was already sent and they replied they just will refund me for July ingnoring my additional questions.....