I'd like to ask for your opinion. My husband is already in Switzerland and I will join him soon. I have the opportunity to start a remote job (employment). It's a German company and they told me that they cannot hire me in Switzerland and would only be able to offer me a German contract (in terms of insurance, taxes etc...) and in addition, I would also require a German address.
I am not so familiar with the legal requirements. Is it possible to work remotely for a German company in Switzerland?
Where can I ask for more information?
I still have my room in my parent's house, that's not a problem. Regarding the taxation, I have to talk to my accountant.
In itself it's possible. The problem is that even though you'd have a German contract at a German address if you're doing it in Switzerland you (and your employer) will be liable in Switzerland for tax and social security. You've already mentioned your employer wants to treat you as a German employee only but there is the ANobAG scheme. Alternatively you can work through a Swiss payroll company which the 'employer' pays directly or I suppose you could set up your own Company and employ yourself through that but there might also be complications.
You could do it as real German employee and hope no-one ever found out but that's clearly not ideal.
Yes it is possible for you to work for a German company but this is absolutely not the way to go about it. The person that came up with the idea to have the company, you and your husband all submitted false tax documents is an idiot. Because that is what this is and it is difficult enough for one person to keep the story straight over time never mind three.
It is possible for a foreign company to have Swiss based staff on their payroll but it is complicated and usually only done in the border regions where there will be several employees involved.
The easiest approach is to have a Swiss payroll company handle it. The will invoice the German company for the gross amount and then pay you as an employee of the payroll company. That way you will have proper pension, unemployment and disability cover and so on.
If near Zurich check Lotstetten or Jestetten. Both towns are German but in the middle of Switzerland.
Otherwise see if you can live in the border region and your husband could travel into Switzerland. That is called Grenzgänger and some rules apply. You need to check them.
But then hubby has an issue to figure it all out and change his permit. He needs to check first whether that is possible at all.
Also, from experience, I wouldn‘t want to drive daily from there to Zurich. Lots of traffic both ways and 40 kilometers can easily take you more than an hour drive.
Thank you all for your replies. My husband is working as a Ph.D. at EPFL, Lausanne. So he has nothing to do with my company. Unfortunately, that also means that a "Gränzgängerstatus" is out of the question.
The company is a start-up and 90% of their employees are working remotely, which is why I (naively) thought that things are going to be easier. I certainly will spend some of my days in Germany at home, but less than six months obviously.
Would I have to contact the Swiss payroll company?
This is something that I am about to deal with too, but for the UK. I generally work for start ups that don’t have overseas offices or internal expertise to manage overseas workers. From reading around the subject I think the cleanest option will be to get paid via a Swiss payroll company that manages the Swiss fiscal obligations and registrations. I understand that they will charge a small fee, which the employer will pick up in my case but may be offset by some tax savings in CH vs UK.
The thing that I am unclear on is regarding employment rights. If I am technically an employee of the Swiss payroll company, then do I have an employment contract with them? Or is there some form of service level agreement with the Swiss payroll Co? I assume the additional steps will also need setting out in the employment contract with the UK co?
Basically, you have none. Switzerland isn't strong on such things any way.
Best thing, if you can and it's long term, is set up your own GmbH (private limited company), and use a B2B contract with your clients. With a payroll company, you are their employee and they have a B2B contract with your clients.
As a Swiss resident you also need to think about obligation to pay OASI and depending on income also 2nd pillar. I would get some support to set this up right.
This is something I looked into for a while as well. Basically you end up paying almost everything twice, for example health insurance, pension funds, taxes (yes officially there is a double taxation avoidance scheme, but in practice I found that it was not working as well as it should...) -- Germany will want you to register where your German address is, and they don't support "second residence" registration unless the first residence is already in Germany; Switzerland will also require you to register in Switzerland, especially if you spend more than half your working days in Switzerland. And then if you are registered in two countries, both will want you to give up, for example, your driving license from the other country, if you have a car they will require that you have car plates from that country, if you lose your job, unemployment will refuse to pay as you were working/living in the other country, etc etc.
I had my own GmbH for fifteen years. It worked great.
Financially, you swap accountancy costs for the payroll company admin fee, you can choose your 2nd pillar pension, you can optimise your taxes, you can make capital purchases and the company can pay various expenses that a payroll company won't usually allow.
From a control point of you - you're in control. If the client doesn't pay and you're in a payroll company, you're reliant on the payroll company to dun. That takes effort on their part that doesn't really benefit them, so they'll do it, but perhaps with not so much agency. Furthermore, if payroll company goes bust before they've paid you, you may lose a significant sum.
You made a statement: "Best thing, if you can and it's long term" and this what you got.....
Swapping one fee for another is not worth the effort.
Nope you are restricted to a number of funds that are willing to accept you, their returns are not great and because you are an individual the risk factor do no come out as good in cases of incapacity.
You can choose to pay CT or IT on the income generated, but anything you pay CT on will be further subject to IT, so is not worth it either*
You can do that through a payroll company as well.... and in fact it is easier to get it past a tax inspection than doing it through a one man company.
If a client does not pay their invoice, it does not matter if it is you or the payroll company. There is only one way to recover the money and this it inflict pain on the client. Which I have had to do a few times.
And the fact that you did not mention the post important one makes me wonder....
In most cases the effort of setting up and running a gmbh is not wort it.