Hello, I received an offer for a full-remote position for a EU-based company. Their working model is, they only employ contractors, so they don't care about having a representative branch in another country. This means that, if I want to accept the offer, I have to register as self-employed in Switzerland.
Which is fine, but...
When negotiating salary, there is something that I need to take into account: What would be (roughly, kanton ZH) my additional contribution for things like 2nd pillar, old age/survivor/invalidity pension etc? For example, if you're employed in Switzerland your employer pays at least half of your total 2nd pillar contribution, so clearly having salary X as employed is better than having annual income X as self-employed.
To register as self-employed, you must be able to prove (invoices, etc) that you have more than two clients. With only one client and receiving a salary, you are effectively employed, whether your employer is in Switzerland or not. There must be a few threads on working for an employer in the EU but living in Switzerland.
Pillar 2 is a contributory pension for employees with an employer, so if you are self-employed, you can't benefit from it.
The very first step for you is to figure out how you are going to get a work permit. If you are Swiss or hold a C permit it is a not issue and as I understand it if your permit is issued for the purpose of family reunification it should not be an issue either.
If you are an EU citizen you are entitled to establish a business here. The permit request will involve business plan etc, so you should factor in such costs. This right relates to establishing a business in the Swiss economy, so I don’t know if they will expect remote working.
To successfully establish a business you will normally need to have more that one client. If you are accepted, the you may find that both VAT and Welfare authorities require you to supply insurance bonds since your income is 100% export. So unless you can pledge cash, you will incur fees here too.
I don’t think this is the best approach for you. Probably a payroll company would be better.
This pension scheme (for old-age, disability and survivors' pensions, according the the law called BVG, i.e. "second pillar") accepts self-employed people, and employees of small companies which cannot set up their own scheme. https://www.gepabu.ch/gepabu/philosophie
They have a range of insurance levels for low, medium and high earners.
To join their scheme, any employer must demonstrate that they have already insured the employee for "Lohnfortzahlung" i.e. for the continuation of salary/wage payments in the event of illness. They prescribe at least 12 or 24 months, which goes way beyond what little the law prescribes, and is a very good idea.
You are referring to small companies that have employees. I was assuming that the OP wanted to register as an einzelfirma, in which case he/she would not be able to benefit from Pillar 2.
Having done all of these (employee, self-employed, company owner); the best way is to create your own company and create the invoices from that company.
You are right, getting X as an employee is better than getting X with a company, however; the difference is not that much. If you surcharge between 10-15% that should cover all the costs (accounting, administration etc.).
The main difference between having a company vs being employed comes with the side benefits (2nd pillar contribution by the company, health insurance, company car, etc.).
Ordinarily, yes. However the particular organisation to which I linked really does accept sole traders (one-person-show) into their pension scheme... which is quite remarkable, and good news for anyone working alone who wants to be able to insure themselves in terms of the BVG law.
Thank you for all the replies, I realize I omitted some details. First of all, I am EU citizen with C permit. I understand a payroll company would probably be a better option but I'm not sure the possibly future employer will be happy (higher costs for them at same salary rate for me). I also know that for Einzelfirma I need to already have customers, so that was out of the question, I intended to open a Gmbh/Sarl instead.
Talking with a friend who did the same, my understanding is the following:
1) not trivial initial deposit, plus 700-1000 CHF one-time for attorney fee (registering the company)
2) Not trivial annual costs for an accountant, something around 5k/year (possible to do it without but not recommended by more than an acquaintance, at least for the first time you go self-employed, please, PLEASE do not reply with "I did everything myself and it was fine")
Ignoring the points above, what I was referring to is what would the "visible costs" be on my net available salary when I account for paying myself my own 2nd pillar, sickness/disability insurance etc. An approximate estimate I've been looking at is: if my current employer pays 100, in order to have the same effective net salary my new employer should offer 115-119, which is more or less in line with @taskalem advice. Maybe you can do lower, 110-115, but only if you really, really like to spend some time optimizing tax strategy. Did I understand correctly?
I hadn't heard of AnoBAG, sounds interesting. However, my understanding is that it's only an option if you only care about your relationship with *one* foreign employer, while a Gmbh (or even an Einzelfirma if you can) gives you the freedom to invoice parties from anywhere, establish your own sales contracts etc.
1- 20k deposit, 2000 CHF at the notary. But 20K can be used immediately after the company is formed, it is your money at the end. 2'000 CHF will be lost in the creation process (taxes + notary fees).
2- 5K is way too much for a company like yours, should be lower than 3K.
I think you understood correctly. But in anyway your own GmbH is better than using somebody else's company. And you can optimize your costs to bring that difference down to 10-15% (may be even lower). You just need a very good accountant.