What if you didn’t spend 700 Fr on biking in a year? 
That’s a pauschal abzug, doesn’t matter if you actually spend 700 or not.
4 Likes
According to art. 26 para. 1 lit. a LIFD/DBG, business expenses that may be deducted include necessary travel expenses between home and place of work, up to a maximum of CHF 3’000 (for 2022; up to CHF 3’200 for 2023). Art. 5 para. 2 of the FDF Ordinance on the deduction of business expenses incurred by self-employed persons for the purposes of direct federal taxation stipulates that the necessary expenses for the use of public transport (letter a) or the necessary expenses per kilometer driven in a private vehicle are deductible, provided that public transport is not available or that the taxpayer cannot be expected to use it (letter b).
If the deductibility of the use of public transport is more important, you should request it. Of course, you will probably be asked to provide proof of payment of the public transport subscription or tickets. On the other hand, if you use your bike, you can claim up to a maximum of CHF 700 deductible. As far as proof is concerned, you can request a certificate from your employer, for example. On the other hand, you cannot combine the deduction for public transport and the bicycle.
That seems to be wrong:
3 Likes
No you can deduct both. What you cannot do is car+(public transportation/bike).
Never happened to me.
Interesting one, it would be usefull for my next exam 
It seems that the professor missed that one.
The amount is ridiculous compared to the amount of work taxpayers have to do to finish on time. However, an audit could be carried out if the wrong taxman is in a bad mood that day
Or, if they really cared, a check could be put in place to automatically complain as soon as such a receipt is missing in the declaration.
I don’t buy a monthly pass because I do bike, but there are many days when for a reason or another I have to take the tram and it’d be ridiculous to collect and claim all single tickets.
It is ! I would probably not doing it also. But it is what you should do in a idealistic world (and some people are doing it because they are afraid of the tax authority).
I collect those individual receipts when I’m not using my bike. Not really an extra effort since I track and categorize my expenses anyhow.
1 Like
Just to assure you, worked both in Zurich and Lucerne for me. I don’t have proof for the bike, but I always add my receipt for the public transport ticket (I usually buy Halbtax and ZVV/VBL - don’t know if Halbtax works though).
EDIT: I checked my tax program and my bill and yes, the Halbtax was accepted too.
Has anybody ever got an explanation why some deductions are accepted and some are not? Throughout these past years I was always off by about 100 - 300 CHF in the final bill between what the program had calculated for me. I can see the “Deklarationsprotokoll” in the program and the “Veranlagungsprotokoll” from the final bill, but nowhere does it state why something was not accepted. Is there a way to see that? Do I just email them?
Usually they will give a reason, for differences in their Veranlagung to your Erklärung. At the end of the Veranlagung, under Bemerkungen for example it will say “Ziffer xyz: car costs can’t be deducted, just public transport” (usually standardised text blocks) where Ziffer xyz is the number of the line in the declaration which is “work deduction transport costs”.
Can you see something like that?
Maybe they don’t bother for minimal corrections… of course it’s your right to know though, also for next year, so they’d certainly tell you (phone/email).
Nope, nothing just blank space. Maybe it’s really not worth their effort to add that with these sums. I sent them an email. Thank you!
I have a question regarding the “Pauschalabzug” of 4k for “Berufskosten”. In BS it states that that reason, cause, and amount need to be declared. However, judging from what I read on this forum, I am under the impression since it is a Pauschalabzug most people are just placing it in the declaration.
Check out this summary of the most important tax deductions (covering all cantons).
Under “Übrige Berufsauslagen” (Other professional expenses) you will notice that BS is singular in this matter. Unlike other cantons, it caps the flat rate deduction (Pauschale) to CHF 4000 including travel costs and meal taken outside home. So the flat rate deduction is actually quite low compared to other cantons.
If you would like to deduct more than the flat rate you will have to prove those expenses.
Thanks a lot, very helpful. So if I understand it correctly, just merely based on meals taken outside form home, one can easily take the flat rate deduction of 4k. On top of that, clothing and shoes can account for a lot. It would only become critical if one wants to claim effective costs then it would require proof of all costs.
I searched the forum and all of Google. Only you mentioned it and never “discussed” it, all questions regarding this method were unanswered by you…
Am I too stupid to export a summary of all my tickets bought during 2023 from sbb? I used to have a GA but switched to single tickets due to increasing homeoffice days. Anyone?
Do you want to report a value different to pauschal?
Otherwise I don’t bother - just put the default without attaching anything.
1 Like