Remote work laws in Switzerland

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1

My wife is an EU citizen currently living in Switzerland under family reunification (B permit). She is looking at remote work options in EU. If she finds remote work

  1. in her native country,
  2. in another EU country,
    Where will she pay taxes and make social security contributions?
2

She’ll have to pay tax here as a resident plus any taxes applicable in her home country if there are obligations such as in the US where you are taxed regardless of where you live.

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This is a subject that was covered well on the previous EnglishForum. Try searching here for freelancing.

It is a simple matter and free to become self-employed. She will need a couple of invoices to show she is actually working to be shown at your local tax office. Tax, less expenses, can be claimed of your joint declaration using Hilfblatt A. The tax office will inform the social office and they will bill according to annual income…

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One of the easiest options is to setup this via payroll company, for example Payrolling in Switzerland - Helvetic Payroll (helvetic-payroll.ch) The benefit would be having all Swiss employee advantages, like the unemployment insurance. However the payroll will cost some %. With such setup you’ve got an employment contract with the payroll company, the company is charging your client. Usually you have access to 2 accounts, the internal balance account and the “employee” account, so you can manipulate your monthly salary by leaving some money in the internal account to top up your salary next month. This is useful when your income is irregular, but also in situations when you know ahead that you’ll need better looking last 3 months pay slips :grinning:

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In the past months, I had 3 friends burned by Helvetic Payroll, where they were bending the rules on insurance contributions; in one extreme case, after 3 years of working under them, the wife was let go so she sought unemployment (chomage), only to have it refused as “helvetic and similar agencies are not contributing therefore staff do not qualify to claim unemployment”?!
I have (positive experience) with a different payroll company, and am happy to discuss over DM, to avoid advertising. I am not a shareholder in any of them, and soon moving to register my own company to handle my gig work.

I guess the message I am trying to convey is, do you proper research and ask some of the ‘uncomfortable’ questions upfront, so if you/your wife ever ends up in a situation where she wishes to claim benefits, she could.

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