Do I have to file at home while living in Switzerland?
For most people the answer turns on whether the ties that made them resident have actually ended. For a US citizen or green-card holder it does not: the return is due in Switzerland exactly as it would be at home. Everything else on the file follows from which of those you are.
Is there a treaty between my country and Switzerland?
Treaty networks change with each protocol and each multilateral-instrument position, so we confirm the treaty in force for your specific year with the issuing authority rather than relying on a published summary. Where there is none, unilateral relief and domestic law do the work instead.
I own property in Switzerland. Where is the rent taxed?
In Switzerland, because that is where the property sits. The complication is the base: gross-rent withholding takes no account of mortgage interest, tax or repairs, so a leveraged property can face tax on turnover. An election onto net profit, where it exists, is what fixes that — and it has its own timing.
I work from Switzerland for a foreign employer — who taxes my salary?
Start with where the work is physically done, because employment income is generally taxed where the duties are performed rather than where the employer is incorporated or where the payroll runs. If you sit in Switzerland and do the work here, Switzerland has the primary claim over that salary even though no Swiss entity pays it. The employer's country may also withhold, on the basis that it is the source of the payment, and that is where the double charge comes from. The treaty then decides. The work is to establish where you were on each working day, apply the treaty to that pattern, and make sure both filings use the same split rather than each assuming the whole.
Does my employer have to run Swiss payroll if I work from home here?
Possibly, and it is the employer's exposure rather than yours, which is why the question tends to be raised late. Where an employee performs duties in Switzerland, obligations can arise for the employer regardless of whether it has any Swiss establishment: registration, withholding and social contributions among them. Some of these can be handled by the employee under an arrangement with the authorities; others cannot. Because the consequences fall on the company, the sensible sequence is to establish the position and write it down before the working pattern starts, rather than after a year of payments has been made on the assumption that nothing changed.
Can working from my Swiss flat create a taxable presence for my employer?
It can, and this is the risk employers care about most. A fixed place of business at the disposal of the enterprise, through which its business is carried on, can amount to a permanent establishment, and a home used regularly and over a long period for the employer's work has been treated that way in a number of jurisdictions. The risk rises sharply where the employee habitually plays the principal role leading to the conclusion of contracts, because that is a separate route to a taxable presence which does not depend on premises at all. A salesperson working from home is therefore a very different case from a developer on otherwise identical facts.
Do I pay Swiss social security if my employer is abroad?
Social security follows its own rules and they are not the tax rules, so the answer can differ from where your income tax falls due. Coverage is usually determined by where the work is carried out, with exceptions for posted workers and for people working in more than one country, and those exceptions depend on the agreements in force between the specific countries involved. The document that matters is the certificate confirming which system you remain in; without it, contributions can end up payable in both places with no mechanism to recover either. Deal with this alongside the tax analysis rather than after it, because it is often the larger of the two costs.
I split my week between two countries — how is my salary divided?
By working days, and the arithmetic is less contentious than the record-keeping. The usual approach is to count the days on which duties were performed in each country across the year and apportion the employment income accordingly, with bonuses allocated to the period they were earned over rather than to the day they were paid. What causes trouble is proving the pattern afterwards. Calendar entries, travel bookings and building access records assembled at the time will settle an enquiry; a reconstruction from memory long afterwards will not. Keep a simple day log from the start of the arrangement and the rest of the analysis becomes routine.
My employer has agreed I can work from Switzerland — what should I check?
Four things, in this order. Where your income tax will be due once the duties are performed here, and whether the employer's country will keep withholding. Whether the employer picks up a registration or withholding obligation in Switzerland. Which country's social security you belong in, and what evidences it. And whether your presence exposes the employer to a taxable presence, which depends heavily on what your role actually involves. Each has a different answer and a different owner. Getting all four written down before the arrangement begins is considerably cheaper than unwinding a year of payroll that assumed nothing had changed.
Does hiring one remote employee in another country create a tax presence?
It can, on two separate fronts, and the second applies even when the first does not. A permanent establishment may arise if the employee has a fixed place of business there or concludes contracts for you. Independently of that, employing someone locally generally brings payroll registration, wage withholding and social security contributions in their country from the first payroll — obligations that do not wait for a permanent establishment finding. Contractor paperwork does not by itself avoid either. See remote work and tax exposure.
Do I have to declare my dual citizenship?
A tax return does not generally ask you to declare which passports you hold; it asks about residence, and in the US case it applies to citizens by definition. What does ask is your bank. Account-opening self-certification under FATCA and the Common Reporting Standard asks which countries you are a tax resident or citizen of, and the answer is reported onward to the tax authority. So the practical answer is that the information arrives either way. See FATCA reporting.
