They could have reduced the tax by 10%, then no need to opt out nor opt as it’s exactly 10% to manage! A perfect solution. Can someone pass this idea to the Social Democratic Party? 
All the nice things about Switzerland seem to be invented by liberals and are being slowly eroded away by socialists.
Luckily only in their cantons - central Switzerland and Aargau is staying strong and actively participating in tax competition (we wen’t from 112% to 106% and now to 100% in cantonal tax).
We should have a reduction in administrative employees due to digitization, instead, we get more and more useless regulation due to EU and federal laws. We should have much lower taxes to offset the demographic impact health insurance and AHV payments will have on us - the contributors to society.
In the case of Basel, I’m very confident in saying that this is a combination of self destructive love and complexions to appeal “European” + a not insignificant number of Europeans continuing the shitty politics of their original countries.
However, I do respect federalism and if Basel wants to be a glorified German/French province, so be it.
I think this might be the problem. 
It’s a bit of an off-topic but did anyone feel the same? I’ve been to Basel and it felt the least Swiss among major Swiss towns I’ve ever been to. I’ve spoken to a few colleagues and they had the same feeling. But the ones who lived there loved it.
In what sense?
I don’t know, hard to tell, the vibe was that I was walking in German/French town not in a Swiss one, some sort of a mixed Berlin/Lyon vibe, except for the older Swiss speaking their dialect in a restaraunt.
Swiss towns are very different overall, i.e. Geneva, Lausanne, Neuchatel, Lugano, Lucerne, Bern, Zurich.. but all seem to belong together, and Basel felt a bit out of place, but it’s subjective I guess!
Basel? Damned Europeans!!! Quite a statement when fellow Aargauers go to work to Basel for better income 
Thanks for triggering the curiosity, today I confirmed that I live in dormitory town: Beschäftigtendichte (Beschäftigte pro Einwohner) or workplaces per inhabitant.
We had no problem with the deferred final payment, but likely not the case for everyone. We may have been cherry picked. Who else would know who had the cash reserves.
The same can be achieved with a standing order, plus the yield of that money on any low risk investment fund is still higher than the zins they pay you, clear no for me.
Basel is culturally very non traditioanlly Swiss imho - while the term “a glorified German/French province” might do it injustice, there are just shy over 60% Swiss people in Basel - and among those a large part is naturalized German/French/Balkan workers. The border proximity also gives it an openness that other Swiss cities (imho luckily) don’t have.
And it’s the only real left leaning German Canton in Switzerland.
People commute where the jobs are - and cities is where a lot of service sector companies have their headquarters. Nothing wrong with that - nothing wrong with Basels (imho self destructive) political direction either, we have a federal system and can always get rid of them if we want to 
Not only that, making life more convenient for irresponsible people makes them MORE, not LESS irresponsible. It’s your duty to manage your money (and taxes are a part of that) as a normal functioning adult - Switzerland has a very high fiscal discipline, even among private households (on avg. at least).
I call my Gemeinde in November and tell them my new income. they then adjust the provisional tax bill for the next year and send me an E-Mail. But people here acting like idiots who get into tax debt, due to overspending, will have an easier life… lol
We need way more competetiveness in our society. If we make everything soft and easy, you’ll end up with a soft and lazy populous and that’s precisely why it’s no wonder out of all Cantons Basel has done this, they’re very far into this “soft and lazy” development. But ofc, they are still Swiss, so the local SP is very much sucking it up to Pharma companies - as expected.
And Bern?
I guess that depends on your definition on left leaning. The city of Zurich has more left wing executive politicians than Basel.
It’s an interesting take you have there. The average Swiss would call it “efficient”. Switzerland is much better known throughout the ages for being efficient and finding efficient ways of doing things. So you are saying that an overly bureaucratic way of keeping something unnecessarily long-winded in order to stop people becoming “lazy” is the way forward?
I take it you still do your internetz off a dial-up connection, in that case?
I think the majority of people are not good with money. Most live paycheck to paycheck. Now this may be unavoidable on low income, but it’s also true of high earners. I have friends who out-earned me but spend their pay every month.
I spoke to a someone last week who was talking to one of his colleagues who was looking to buy a house and complained that “who has 200k lying around for a deposit”. He was thinking “you’ve been working for 20 years in a very high-paying pharma job, how do you NOT have 200k saved up?!”
I think taxes are not too bad, they are every year and if you get it wrong, you’ll learn and adapt. Longer term provisioning like pensions is much more difficult to get discipline and it is right that the government makes people pay for this. While this might not be ‘fair’ to those who are fiscally responsible who want to make better provisions for themselves, the government has to account for the majority. Otherwise, the rest will anyway have to bail them out when they have no money in retirement.
Do you have numbers to back this up?
Switzerland has a median equivalised household disposable income of USD 39k (Source) and a median net worth of USD 140k (Source). There is some money around.
Look at me as a non-average Swiss then See my posting above.
This comparison doesn’t hold up. The government can use whatever digital debt collection tools they like (dial-up vs. fibre). The basic principles of interaction between government and its citizens remain untouched by this choice.
I think you misunderstood the context on this. Aargauer seems to be advocating for the long-winded way of doing things for fear of being perceived as “soft and lazy” so I assumed that he was preferring the pain of a squeaky dial up connection for his internetz fun instead of the magical speed and efficiency us softies currently enjoy
People can opt out. Public policy is trial and error, if it’s a mistake, it can be reversed.
Competition is good. But when I read “9% of households has tax arrears”, I thought this is an extremely politically correct way to say “the bottom decile has troubles to pay tax”. I guess there’s no need to explain why this tax debt must be collected. The state enforces legit rules for the benefit of everyone.
At the same time, using the force of the state to squeeze the bottom decile and the money goes to debt collection companies instead of city (canton?) coffers. That leaves me wondering if there could be something better.
Sorry, I missed that. What’s the source for this quote?
Of course this is one possible interpretation. Another one could be that people with enough money choose not pay in time while the people with little money make every effort to pay in time. We just don’t know unless we dig deeper into the numbers.
I would consider deducting money from salary an even more extreme form of squeezing.
What would you see as the ideal situation?
The forum software nagged me for sharing a link 2 times.
I’d assume people with enough money to pay ask for an extension of payment deadline, they don’t get a debt collection started on them.
There’s no ideal, there are alternatives and trial and error.
EDIT: about living paycheck to paycheck in Switzerland…
