Treuhand recommendations?

Finance, Taxes, Banking, Insurance and Retirement
1
Hello,

I am looking for someone to help me with my taxes. Wondering if anyone have any recommendations?

The ones I've talked to has cited up to 1000 CHF for their services which I felt was expensive? As many foreigners I have assets, an apartment and mortgage in another country though which complicates things I guess, but I was hoping to get away with half if I'm honest.

2
That's ridiculous, we've never paid more than 150. Can't help in your area though sorry.

3
That is about an hour or perhaps two worth of effort. If you have to spend time reading up and check documents for a double tax treaty etc you could easily expend more than 10 hours on the task.

Since we have no idea of the effort involved, saying that the figure is ridiculous is meaningless! Only when the OP has got a couple of estimates can we draw any conclusions.

4

That sounds about right for a very simple tax declaration, takes a professional about 10 minutes to complete, with no real input as to what or how savings could be made.

5
I have used JV before in Dubendorf, think they charge 120 for a complicated return

https://www.jv-treuhand.ch/

I have seen this company in Zurich which charge 60 fr a tax return

https://steuern59.ch/

If you shop around I think less than 150 should be possible to find.

As long as you are prepared and provide all the documents needed, the company doesnt have to chase you, so that is a bit of advanced work on your side. For a professional to complete the return I assume its quite quick. And dont forget if this isnt your first tax return its largely a cut and paste of last years with up dated figures. If it is your first they will have a bit more work, but then if they do a good job I would suppose you would continue using them.

6
Get a couple of quotes to see and ensure quotes are for free (not always they are in CH).

I believe the cheapest of options are for a single person, one bank account, perhaps third pillar deduction etc. As soon as you start having wealth, children and more deudctions plus property abroad I can see how it becomes more expensive as just checking all the docs is time consuming.

We got one done by a professional a few years back and it was roughly 1400.-. Put our mind at peace that we were doing all the right things and we did our own ever since.

7
I’m guessing you got a quote from Mattig and Suter. The first year will be more expensive as noted above. I think my first couple of years with them were around 1050-1150, but included a lot of calculations for deductions for home renovations (what counts as replacement versus value accretive) on top of investments etc. This year was more straightforward and cost 850. I would expect that to decrease further as things become more copy and paste.

It depends how much you value your time and how your German understanding is, but using the software in conjunction with the guide on this forum I used to do 2x tax returns in a couple of hours. NB the guide is for Zurich, but the principles and the software are the same. The hardest part is getting all the numbers together.

8
I would agree with above poster. The harder but is having all your docs in order and copied/scanned etc. This is work that is even more important with a Treuhand as they need to understand your docs.

Also the tax offices are happy to help answer questions and if you make a mistake you can correct it.

9
So why don't you just use your canton's tax software for free? You have to do the bulk of the work (collecting papers) yourself anyway. Tax consultants for the most part are just doing overpriced data entry work for you.

For the few tricky questions you might have, you can turn to a forum like this or pay them by hour for a consultation.

Not really. If in doubt, always deduct - let the tax office correct your declaration later, it's not a crime to make mistakes in it.

10
I have a complicated set-up and rely on experts.

They usually charge me 600-700.

11
I used Peter Vogt at Tax Partner AG in Zurich. Would definitely recommend him.

12
Don't know about other cantons, but Wallis's software is a complete nightmare. I did it last year - figuring I could just copy the entries done by the accountant in previous years. Never again - laptop nearly went of the balcony several times.