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Re: swiss-list: Double Taxation Switzerland and USA / Social Security

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Re: swiss-list: Double Taxation Switzerland and USA / Social Security

From: Beat Ammon <click for textversion of email address >
Date: Wed, 14 Apr 2004 23:09:57 -0500

The way I understand it is that the years you work here won't count
towards the AVS in Switzerland, but you will be eligible to receive a
fraction of the US SS, see
http://www.socialsecurity.gov/international/Agreement_Pamphlets/switzrld.html
and http://www.socialsecurity.gov/international/your_ss.html#when
However, depending on your income the savings by not paying for the
voluntary Swiss AVS might be even much bigger than in Ralf's
calculation. Since the Swiss AVS is in fact one of the many hidden Swiss
taxes, you pay almost 10% of your salary to the AVS no matter how much
your income is, but your monthly retirement benefits will be capped to
whatever the maximum benefits will be at the time of your retirement
(currently something in the neighborhood of CHF 2000 per month). On the
other hand, here in the US you don't have to pay more than a maximum
annual social security tax of roughly $5500 and you're contributions
will count as a full year.

-- Beat

Ralf Kubli wrote:

> Laetitia
>
> -AVS: you can only be dispensed from paying ss in the US if your
> employer pays for avs in switzerland. there is a form for this that
> your employer has to fill out. Usually this is done by large CH
> companies, (sulzer, abb, ubs, etc.) if you work for a US company or
> are not here as a transferee, you have to pay ss.
>
> -there is an agreement for the recognition of your ss payments if you
> ever return to CH. there should be plenty of information in the
> archive of the swiss list on this. in short: you pay ss in the US,
> for at least 18months, you return to CH and they recognize the years
> that you have contributed SS at 50% in CH.
>
> -I personally think you should save the money you pay into the AVS
> while in the us and invest it in CH, you can make some calculation
> that shows easily that you loose out on paying 9.something percent.
> Per year that you do not pay avs in CH you loose 1/42 (or whatever the
> required years of contribution are for a full benefit (rente). if you
> contribute in the US to ss and go back to CH, they count your
> contribution time at 50%, so you actually only loose 1/84 of your
> maximum benefit times the years you did not contribute in CH (as long
> as you pay SS).
> If you can afford to pay the 9.6% (or what it is) of AHV on your
> pretax salary and pay Social security and live in Manhattan then I
> would like to know which company you work for and maybe they have a
> job for me...;))
> Just make the rough calculation, you live 25 years after retirement:
> 65-90,
> you don't pay avs in ch, and lose 2.3% of an assumed monthly benefit
> of 2000CHF= CHF46 lost per month X12=552x25=13800CHF lost of AHV
> payments per year you did not pay avs in CH. but this is money paid
> to you in 30 or 40 years over a 25 year period, so you discount it
> back to todays worth of money and you look at what you pay now: let's
> say you have an income of 50 K and pay 9.6% of pretax dollars of
> voluntary avs: $50000 x9.6%= 4800USD/per year you pay to Geneva.
> If you take this money and put it in a decent investment today and
> wait until you are 65, it will be worth a lot more than the 13800CHF
> that you potentially loose over 25 years (if you happen to live 25
> years after retirement, or if you still care what income you have with
> 88 ;)) by not paying avs for a few years.
>
> Not to mention the fact that if you still believe the avs will still
> be looking the same in 30 years as it is now with the dramatic
> demographic changes happening, then you must have very strong faith in
> the swiss economy to be able to bear the burden of paying avs to all
> the old people without having any population growth by births or
> immigration.
>
> -every resident in the US has to pay taxes, unless you are not a
> resident, or work on a cash basis, which we can assume half of this
> city operates on and a large part of the country does as well.
>
> Check out the archive in swiss list on this subject as well.
>
> I am sorry if I have bored some of you again (if you even got that far
> reading) with the above elaborations, but as you can see, there is
> some reasoning behind not paying voluntary avs in CH while paying SS
> in the US.
>
> Regards
>
> Ralf
>
>
> On Apr 12, 2004, at 16:07, Laetitia Hirschy wrote:
>
>> Hi,
>>
>> I understand that there are treaties between Switzerland and the US,
>> so that
>> you don't have to pay social security in both countries. How does
>> this work?
>> I currently live and work in NYC and pay social security here (which is
>> deducted from my salary at the end of each month) and AVS back at
>> home in
>> Geneva. I'd like to know how I can go ahead and be exempt from paying
>> soc.
>> sec taxes here and keep paying AVS in Switzerland since I intend to
>> go back
>> to CH at some point? Is there any other taxes that we are exempt from? I
>> heard that Chinese citizens don't have to pay taxes in the US because
>> they
>> have most-favored nation status with the US, do we have anything like
>> that?
>>
>> Thanks,
>> Laetitia
>>
>>

-- 
Beat Ammon
420 E. Ohio Street, Apt. 9E
Chicago, IL  60611, US
Home: ++1 312-943-2209
E-Mail: beat.ammon_at_bluewin.ch
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Received on Thu Apr 15 2004 - 17:14:24 PDT
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