I will soon relocate to Geneva as my partner has been offered a position with the UN.
I currently work for a company in Brussels and will continue to work for the same company as a "freelancer", in Switzerland.
I have worked as a self-employed professional in the past but I was a "freelancer" in the true sense of the word, i.e. I worked for several different clients and invoiced everything separately, and didn't, of course, have a contract with any of my clients.
This situation will be different as I will have a contract with this company and will be contracted to work for them full-time (37.5 hours a week). As such, given that I am an EU citizen (Britain/Ireland dual nationality), could anyone possibly shed some light on the formalities to be carried out in order to register with the Swiss authorities.
Will I be classed as a normal self-employed person for taxation purposes or will this arrangement mean I will have to register under a different category?
No, there is no reason I want to remain "self-employed", I just wasn't aware that there was an alternative, i.e. something in between "self-employment" and "employment".
Why did you think you might be self employed? curious to know.
Even if you had multiple clients, your still unlikely to be self employed, unless your taking an element of risk, if you have fixed hours, with pre defined pay & work at a companies place of business, you would never be legally self employed in CH.,
Anobag is Arbeitnehmer ohne Beitragspflichtige Arbeitgeber, I don't know what the CHian French equivalent is called but it is the same thing.
As I said, being regarded as Anobag sucks big time.
It also means that you not only pay the Arbeitnehmerbeiträge but also the Arbeitgeberbeiträge yourself, your health insurance is premium and the tax man swoops onto you with little shouts of glee.
In my case it has ended up by having to pay more that I managed to put to the side.
Could anyone provide more information on registering as an ANOBAG in Geneva?
In particular I would be grateful if anyone could give me some advice on what the advantages and drawbacks of this system are and what the contributions to be made (income tax, social security, health insurance and so on) would be (and if these are different to those made by the "self-employed").
In the Belgian system apparently it's classed as a type of self-employment and my company (erroneously) uses the term "freelancer" to describe this arrangement which, I suppose, is really just teleworking/working remotely.
I previously worked in Portugal for three years for various clients and was classed as self-employed as I didn't have fixed hours or any sort of contract with my clients.
I will have set hours and pay when working remotely for my current employer in Geneva but I won't be working at the company's place of business (in Brussels) but rather in my own home office.
Is there any reason the taxman would be harsher on an Anobag than someone who is self-employed?
When working in Portugal it was standard practice for someone self-employed to pay the employee and employer's contributions (income tax and social security payments) so I expected this would be the same in CH.
As the tax (and social security) rates appear to be a lot lower in CH than they are in Belgium, as far as I can see, I should still be receiving more net than I am here...
= Sans la contribution obligatoire des employeurs/without the contribution required (from)employers; so I'm guessing this refers to decustions such as AVS (pension), insurances, etc.
I seem to recall the subject of self-employment with only one employer has come up on here before, and if I remember correctly the received wisdom was that the swiss won't accept it.
I have had a quick look on the forum and can only find two other posts on working as an "anabog". Neither mention that it is a problem with this arrangement. I'm not sure I've interepreted your message correctly but when you say "self-employment with only one employer...the swiss won't accept it" do you mean that my only option is to register as an anabog as opposed to try to register as "self-employed"? Or do you mean that I will not be able to work under the anabog arrangement at all...?
I have no preference for any particular system, I had just assumed that I would somehow be classed as self-employed as I would have a foreign employer and work remotely. Anyway, it seems that my doubts have been addressed and I now know which avenue to pursue.
If the company was CH based, then there would be no chance this would be accepted & they won't accept normal self employed. Since there is no other way to extract social charged from you they will have to accept it, I suspect it exists for exactly the situation your in.
Yes, I agree. It certainly makes sense to a certain extent that it wouldn't be accepted for a CH company (however I do know people with this arrangement in other countries). Hopefully the anobag system is suitable for me.
I suppose translation/editing/copywriting is a bit of a special field in this respect as most people in the industry do work (at least semi-)freelance and quite a lot of my colleagues have contracts (either full or part-time) with one or more client.
Does anyone know if the income tax and social secuirty rates under the anabag system are the same as for self-employed people?
I'd no idea what anabog meant (I'm french speaking), so I used a translator link and worked out that there was a mistake in the original reference (Beitragspflichtige is two words not one). As you're coming to the french-speaking part I thought it might help.
The 'swiss won't accept it' part was just a vague brain cell rattling about, it was a few years ago and I can't find the reference now I know it was within a thread about self employment.
Hope you get it sorted to your satisfaction anyway!