Hi there,
My friend and I have a small business, registered as a Gmbh. 50% - 50% ownership.
Right now the business is not at full speed and only my partner is working for a client, while I am working outside my own company.
There are some reserves, and we have agreed on selling my part to him from a price that mainly represents the reserves that the company has plus an additional amount.
The amounts are not huge, but my business partner does not have to pay me all the cash at once, and I was wondering if there is other good way of exiting without getting in too much tax burden.
buyback is not sufficient, as you can only do as much as 10%. Would the best option be to give dividends to reduce the nominal value of the company? any other idea?
Thanks and happy Easter Holiday!
Get proper legal advice. You need to ensure that you are clearly away from the company and your partner and are in no way liable for any issues that may arise later from the activities of the company while you were part of it. It is not just about taxes.
This article gives an overview of Swiss taxation when selling a GmbH or AG (German):
https://www.vermoegenszentrum.ch/wis…ag-oder-gmbh#c
We were doing some software consulting, I would really not expect any problems for liability, in any case, we have additional insurances covering those cases.
The question is rather, if the company worth 100, and then he would have to pay me 50, if it would be possible to make the company worth 50 (for example, by giving 50 of dividends) so he just have to pay me 25.
What legal ways are to do that?
Your company has insurance not you. Any lawyer is going to tell you to get an indemnity it's what everyone does. Get proper legal advice.