Hi, has anyone worked with either of these 2 companies for them to do your personal income tax return? It would be even better if you have a significant percentage of assets in stocks and received dividends from non-Swiss companies.
I need to choose between the 2.
Assetial (Geneva & Nyon)
www.assetial.ch
Bcd Financial Group (Lausanne)
It has been a few years my employer offers the services of them to us and the feedback from colleagues in general seem OK.
Thanks.
Never heard of them.
How did you end up with these 2 ?
Assetial is less than 2 years (source MoneyHouse) old with 5 employees on Linkedin. None of them with experience in taxes.
BCD FG is 5 years old with 6 people on Linkedin. No experience in taxes.
Looking at their website, they are more insurance brokers than tax consulting firms.
Merci beaucoup Guillaume. My employer offers employees the tax return service and works with these 2 companiesâŠ
Just make sure itâs not just a trick to sell you bad investments (maybe ask how much your employer pays for the service, from what @Guillaume_GVA says wouldnât be surprised if itâs just a way to sell life insurancesâŠ)
Thank you. I can try to ask, so I should choose the cheaper one or more expensive one?
One colleague told me that he has chosen company A over B because B tried to sell him more serviceâŠ
Iâd pick none of them, it seems very fishy, Iâd complain to your employer for being intransparent.
Itâs not a benefit your employer is giving you, just âsellingâ you to those company so they can sell juicy life insurance contracts.
(If this was a real benefit, it would be with a proper tax advisor, and then it would show up in your salary statement like any in-kind benefit, I bet thatâs not the case here).
I totally agree.
You donât know how your company selected these providers.
Did the company choose the cheapest ones ? the best pitching sales ?
It doesnât cost a lot to your employer and employees are happy to benefit from this free service.
The tax return service is more likely a âproduit dâappelâ to push other (and more expensive) financial services.
Iâm not sure that your company is helping the overall financial situation of its employees with such providers. 
However, I admit that offering tax return filing service to its employees is a great idea.
Speak with your colleagues on Monday. If others had similar experience, run away. GEtax or VAUDtax are easy to use and self explanatory, even for a beginner.
My best guess would be that it is exactly what it is about. Filling out your tax return they will ask you to provide them all the insurance premiums and 3rd pillar you paid. They will then sell you products to âfill the gapsâ. Stay away.
Their websites basically scream that theyâll intend to sell you further insurance or investment products.
Just because your employer offers the tax return services, you do not have to take this offer
If I were you, I would proceed with companies with some track records.
Also out of curiosity, do they really fill out your taxes, or is it a âtax consultationâ.
For clarity, I only asked a few colleagues who had contact with both Company A and Company B for their preference, as Company B was only introduced last year, only 1 colleague mentioned that he chose Company A over B because B tried to sell additional services, but he seems to be satisfied with Company A.
Of the 4-5 people I asked, one Swiss colleague uses neither because he uses a family friend to do his taxes, and the other colleagues (expats and our Swiss HR) seem more or less satisfied/OK with the company they chose, whether itâs A or B.
The reason Iâm struggling to make a decision is that I donât feel very confident with either of them because of something they said below:
Company A guy talks in English for banal communication but when I showed him my broker account webpage to find the approppiete certificate, suddenly his English seems to struggle and even needs the webpage to be in French (I speak French). I mentioned to him that last year my parents sent me about 150k CHF from (outside EU, non US) which I invested in stocks. He advises me to get advice from a lawyer to make sure there is no tax to pay in Switzerland. I was very surprised because shouldnât he be the tax expert? And I donât think I have to pay any Swiss taxes on it, except for the wealth tax.
For company B, I live in Switzerland and I received dividends last year from Swiss, German and US companies, there was a withholding tax already deducted (between the full amount and the amount I received on my broker account), the guy told me that Switzerland will only take into account 15% of the âwithholding taxâ that was already deducted to determine my tax base. I donât understand why not the 100% and where this random 15% comes from. So I googled â15% dividend stocks tax switzerlandâ and it seems itâs with France or for a US citizen (Iâm not). This has put some doubt on his expertise. Please correct me if I am wrong and have misunderstood him.
they asked our tax ID number to fill it online for us
You might be able to get a better service (for free) asking the tax office with your questions than those people
(FWIW, esp. if you already know a bit how it works Iâve always felt like most of the work with taxes was gathering all the docs, which you have to do whether you do it yourself or through a 3rd party)
I joined Switzerland 2 years ago and managed to self declare my taxes autonomously with the help of this forum.
The most time consuming for me is collecting all the documents and computing my euro dividends in chf.
The software on French canton is quite easy to use.
I make my declaration reviewed by a fiduciary for half the cost in order to be more confident. He found only few adjustments.
It is a good exercise and you are allowed to make mistake.
Tax officer will ask you more info or adjust it.
It confirms what you can see on their Linkedin profiles. None of them has a real experience in taxes.
If you cannot choose between Company A or B and donât feel confortable working with them, donât.
Use another provider or do it yourself.
Thanks. Do you think my doubts about what they said are justified? I have edited my text to make it more concise.
Using another provider means I have to pay for it
I am also very suspicious of Assentialâs Google review, they have 142 reviews with an average of 5 stars? even the worst review was 4 stars, how is that possible? Even some of the excellent shops/restaurants I know get negative reviews, itâs almost inevitable when you have more than 50 reviews. Thereâs always someone who doesnât like something.
Do it yourself, thatâs free
As others already mentioned, the most time consuming part is gathering all the documents, which the expert wonât do for you anyway.
It might take some more time the first time you do it, but the following years it will be way faster. The tax software of the cantons are pretty straightforward nowadays and thereâs a lot of guidance in there as well.
I never understood why people use tax advisors for simple personal income taxes. They donât have any magic tricks that save you 1000s in taxes, most of the time youâll pay even more for the consultant than they save you. It might be a good exercise to have it done one time by an expert and the next year you just copy/paste. And as it seems, these two companies donât seem to be experts in tax matters anywayâŠ
I wonât use any of these companies. Insurance brokers with no credential in taxes.
Do you prefer working with a company that you do not trust but is free ? I guess weâre all different
I wonât hesitate to pay some fees for quality/added value service. However, I donât have your dilemma. Iâm working in taxes and doing my own tax return
Non-recuperable foreign withholding tax from many countries can be offset against your Swiss income tax by using form DA-1 - and thatâs 15 percent(age points) for most eligible dividends.
Also, âSi le montant total des impĂŽts Ă©trangers non rĂ©cupĂ©rables (col. 8) nâexcĂšde pas 100 francs, lâimputation nâest pas accordĂ©e. Dans ce cas, on portera les revenus, diminuĂ©s de lâimpĂŽt Ă©tranger non rĂ©cupĂ©rable, dans lâĂ©tat des titres ordinaireâ