Room to grow: Zurich's citizen say it can go ahead with new runways and keep existing flight paths
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – Swiss voters were back at the ballot box Sunday 27 November, a month after parliamentary elections, to vote on a number of items that differed from one canton to the next.
Here are some of the highlights, as results flow in Sunday evening:
Swiss right loses most runoffs, Geneva rebuffs minimum wage
- The right-wing UDC lost heavily in cantonal runoffs for seats in the upper house of parliament
- Two key federal parliament upper house seats: in the closely watched key Zurich election Felix Gutzwiller and Verena Diener defeated Christoph Blocher; Blocher is a former federal councilor and led the UDC/SVP People’s Party to a dominant position in the last decade until he lost his seat in 2007, and in St Gallen UDC candidate and favourite to win, Tony Brunner, lost to Socialist Paul Rechsteiner
- Canton Geneva has voted against a minimum wage but Neuchatel has voted to include it in the canton’s constitution; Switzerland as a whole does not have a minimum wage
- Canton Vaud: Green Party’s Béatrice Métraux defeated UDC’s Pierre-Yves Rapaz for the cantonal upper house seat left vacant by the death of UDC councilor Jean-Claude Mermoud in September
In German-speaking ares: Zurich airport can grow, Zug taxes down and foreigners get mixed bag:
- Foreigners: they will not be given the right to vote at the communal level in Lucerne, but they were spared stiff requirements pushed by the UDC People’s Party in the city of Basel to require strong language skills in order to be naturalized, and Basel’s citizens also voted 3-1 to place the responsibility for naturalization in the hands of the local government rather than the parliament; in Schwyz, voters agreed, 2-1, to align its naturalization laws with federal law and put responsibility for this in the hands of communal commissions (TSR notes that this was necessary after a scandal in Emmen, Lucerne, where the communal council routinely turned down applications from foreigners from certain countries
- Zurich voted strongly against a motion that would have restricted the airport’s growth; it will now be able to add two new runways to and allow existing ones to be extended; the vote was a sharp rebuke to the officials from several communes who were behind a motion to limit flying over highly populated neighbourhoods and to restrict the airport’s growth
- Zug voted in a number of tax breaks, including doubling the reduction per child for families, from CHF9,000 to 18,000, and cutting the corporate tax rate to 5.75 percent from 6.5
- Lump-sum taxes for wealthy foreigners who reside in Switzerland will continue to be offered by cantons Glaris and St Gallen but the latter’s voters have chosen to tighten requirements.
- Smoking in Basel: voters rejected a proposal by restaurants to adopt less strict federal no smoking laws instead of the cantons, in a close vote with just 200 out of more than 23,000 deciding the issue.
GENEVA, SWITZERLAND – The ice hockey season is off to a weak start in Geneva, with Geneva-Servette Hockey Club (GSHC) losing 7-3 (1-2, 2-0, 4-1) to EV Zug.
Swiss taxes varied considerably from one city to another in 2010
Swiss taxes take a bigger bite in Neuchatel than in Zug
Update 22 July (new files added at end) BERN, SWITZERLAND – That magic moment in the year is here, when Bern tells Swiss taxpayers where they were best off, living or dying, in 2010, so the rest of the holidays can be spent planning a move. There is Zug, for those who are rich and single, or if you are married and have two children and you’re living in Neuchatel, Zug but also Geneva will look very good.
Federal income tax is a small part of the three-tiered tax system, with cantonal taxes usually the largest and communal taxes varying the most widely. Zug retains its champion’s title of the cheapest place in Switzerland from a tax standpoint, while Neuchatel remains one of the most expensive, for individuals.
Sample comparisons culled from the 2010 figures, published 21 July by the Federal tax office:
Single, no children, cantonal, communal and parish (if Catholic) taxes, on income of CHF100,000
Add on CHF2,067 for federal income tax
Zurich: CHF11,637 / 9.64%
Zug: CHF6,148 / 5.08%
Bern: CHF14,982 / 14.98%
Basel: CHF16,472 / 16.47%
Lausanne: CHF16,162 /16.06%
Neuchatel: CHF18,639 / 18.64%
Geneva: CHF15’370 / 15.37%
If you make CHF200,000, tax rates range from Zug’s 9.72% to Neuchatel’s 23.71%.
Married, two children, cantonal, communal and parish (if Catholic) taxes, federal tax not included, on income of CHF100,00, one spouse working
Add on CHF907 for federal income tax
Zurich: CHF6,136 / 6.14%
Zug: CHF6,148 / 5.08%
Bern: CHF8,710 / 8.71%
Basel: CHF7,690 / 7.69%
Lausanne: CHF9,175 /9.18%
Neuchatel: CHF10,054 / 10.05%
Geneva: CHF3,202 / 3.20%
If you make CHF200,000, tax rates range from Zug’s 4.43% to Neuchatel’s 17.91%.
When both spouses work the tax rate tends to be 2-3 percentage points higher, except in Zug, where it is half the rate, and in Geneva, where it is double the rate.
Inheritance taxes: avoid Graubuenden
Swiss inheritance taxes are not collected by several cantons, but Graubuenden has the highest rate and Lausanne is the rare city to collect a communal tax in addition to the cantonal one. It’s better to be a son or daughter inheriting than to inherit from a brother or sister, and beware, nieces and nephews, you’ll have to pay more when your uncle’s lovely chalet passes into your hands.
Swiss tax burden, by canton (Ger/Fre), pdf
Swiss tax burden, comparison, communes, pdf
Swiss cities, Geneva included, are home to enormous wealth, not all of it legitimate
Bern, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – For the first time since Switzerland set up its Money Laundering Reporting Office (MROS) in 2002, the number of “suspicious activity reports” (Sars) passed 1,000 in a year. The Swiss Federal Police office reports 28 April that in 2010 the total number of Sars was 1,159, a 29 percent increase over 2009.
FATF assessments of Swiss action on money laundering
Switzerland has been tightening its money laundering laws and stepping up preventive measures since the late 1990s, with a review in October 2009 by the inter-governmental Financial Action Task Force (FATF) showing good progess made since a 2005 review pointed out a number of weak spots.
Switzerland was accepted in 2009 into the FATF system of regular two year reviews, with the next one set for October 2011. It was commended on several points, including its improvements in the system to quickly identify assets of politically exposed persons, mainly dictators.
Switzerland has been particularly sensitive on this score, and in early 2011 was quick to freeze assets of people linked to Egyptian, Tunisian and Libyan regimes.
Weaknesses that were pointed out by FATF in 2009 included extending to a larger group the obligation to submit Sars: lawyers, insurance agents, real estate dealers among others.
One of Switzerland’s biggest problems, the task force said, is clearly identifying real owners when property is purchased or insurance contracts bought, with a third party acting for the owner.
Terrorism money laundering “more or less the same” in 2010 as in 2009
Terrorist financing was shown in only four cases, the new federal police reports indicates, although the number of Sars linked to terrorism jumped from 7 submissions in 2009 to 13 in 2010. Ten of these were forwarded by the MROS to the Swiss attorney general’s office, but six “had no hard evidence of terrorist financing”, the federal police say.
One complex case accounted for eight of the Sars and one case alone involved CHF19 million of the CHF23m total assets for the 13 Sars submitted. All in all, “the situation in 2010 remained more or less the same as in the previous year.”
Financial institutions reported 71% of cases
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Geneva-Servette Hockey Club is out of the Swiss hockey playoffs after losing a tense fight Thursday night 10 March in Geneva, to EV Zug in 12 minutes of overtime: 4-5 (0-3; 2-1; 2-0; 0-1). GSHC’s quarter-finals loss leaves Zug moving on to the semi-finals.
Links to other sites: TSR (Fr)
Disappearance of another father and his children worries Switzerland
Eric Zimmerman, Zug
Zug, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in Zug are raising the alert for a second father and two children who have been missing since Monday.
Swiss media have copiously covered the investigations into the disappearance of two six-year-old girls from St Sulpice in canton Vaud, who left home with their father over a week ago.
The new case involves a father, Eric Zimmerman, age 50, 163cm tall, and his two sons, Lorin age 7, 110 cm and Tim, age 10, 132cm. The three left home to run errands and have not been seen since.
Initial investigations have turned up no trace of them, say police in Zug.
Tim Zimmerman, Zug
Lorin Zimmerman, Zug
Zug, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Eight youths, ages 17-20, were arrested in a roundup in the early hours of Friday 4 February in connection with a beating given to a British couple a week ago at the Zug train station. The eight were arrested in canton Aargau in a joint operation between Aargau and Zug police.
Seven of the youths are Swiss and one is Macedonian, Zug police say. The young men have been turned over to Zug authorities for questioning regarding the incident Friday 28 January. The couple and their three children, who are in their early to mid-teens, were eating near the train station in Zug when a group began to notice them and, according to the father of the family, possibly made fun of them.
The British family, which lives in the UK, does not speak German; the father works part-time in Switzerland. They encountered nine members of the group a few minutes later, around 22:00, at the train station. Some of them began to taunt the family, when suddenly four of them began to punch and kick the couple, apparently without provocation. The children were unharmed but the parents were briefly hospitalized and the woman suffered head injuries.
Zug, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Police in Zug are confident that they will find the gang of young men who attacked a British family Friday evening, spokesperson Marcel Schlatter told GenevaLunch Monday 31 January.
Investigators are expecting to have CCTV footage Tuesday, and they believe the film will allow them to identify the seven to nine youths, about ages 20-22, who were involved. “They’re probably a local group” says Schlatter, noting that nothing in particular appears to have provoked the attack: they were most likely “just young guys out looking for a fight.”
The family doesn’t speak German and no words were exchanged.
Police interviewed people who were at the station at the time but they were unable to give police precise descriptions of the attackers.
The father of the family works in Switzerland part of the time, but the family lives in the UK. The three children, ages 10-13, were not attacked, but both parents were kicked and punched. They were taken to hospital and treated for minor injuries and shock, then released.
Schlatter says the father believes the group first noticed the family when they were all in a restaurant near the train station, where the youths appeared to be making fun of the family, but he was unable to understand what they said. The group then met them again outside the restaurant and a bit later, at the station, where the attack took place.
The Zug station, which was built in 2003, has 25,000 passengers a day.
Police seek witnesses to beating; couple attacked in front of their children
Update 22:15 Zug, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Canton Zug police are seeking witnesses to a beating Friday night 28 January in which a British couple was injured in front of their three children at the train station in the town of Zug.
The pair and their children, whose ages are not given by police, were at the Zug train station at 22:00 Friday, part of a group of people, when they were insulted by nine teenagers.
Four of the teens then attacked the couple for reasons that are not clear, punching and kicking the man and woman several times in the torso and the head.
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Geneva Servette Hockey Club was defeated in Zug Tuesday night 21 September by EV Zug, 4-1 (1-0, 1-0, 2-1). This is the third consecutive defeat for Geneva in the young season.
Links to other sites: Tribune de Geneve (Fre), GS Hockey Club
Members of Elastec/American Marine Inc, prepare to deploy a lighting agent on oil contained in a boom, 5 May, as part of cleanup operations in the Gulf of Mexico following the Deepwater Horizon oil rig accident. The controlled burn was conducted by contracted fishing vessels working with the US Coast Guard, BP, and federal agencies to prevent the spread of oil. (Photo, US Navy / Jeffery Tilghman Williams)
Zug, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Thursday was not a good day for Transocean, the world’s largest offshore oil rig company, which moved its head office to Switzerland in 2008. Company CEO Steve Neweman said, in presenting first quarter financial results, that the accident which caused the loss of the oil rig Deepwater Horizon will increase operating costs by CHF222 million in 2010 and cut revenue by CHF130. The first three months of the year saw a 4.8 percent fall in revenues, to CHF2.6 billion.
Oil spill caused by rig Deepwater Horizon sinking into the Gulf of Mexico
New Orleans, Louisiana, USA (GenevaLunch) - The oil spill caused by the sinking of Transocean’s submersible rig Deepwater Horizon 23 April has not been contained, the US Coast Guard says, and some 1,000 tons of crude oil a day continue to leak into the Gulf of Mexico about 5,000 feet below the surface.
A US Coast Guard official said at a press conference Tuesday that if it is not contained it could become one of the “most significant spills in US history.” An option being considered is to set fire to the oil slick.
The Coast Guard announced Saturday that a “20-mile by 20-mile rainbow sheen with areas of emulsified crude was located approximately 40 miles offshore. Although there is currently no shoreline impact, Gulf Coast states have been notified.”
Firefighters spent two days trying to put out the Deepwater Horizon blaze before the rig sank
The rig sank two days after an explosion set it on fire, with 11 of the crew of 126 still missing after the blaze.
The cost of the cleanup is the responsibility of BP, which earlier this week announced profits for 2009, but the good news was dampened by the Deepwater Horizon fire and the spill that followed.
The rig was operated for BP by Transocean, the world’s largest offshore drilling company, which is based in Zug, Switzerland.
Background, GenevaLunch
Links to other sites: US Coast Guard/BP/Transocean press release, Environment News Service
Coast Guard says leak may be 8,000 barrels crude oil a day
Obama calls disaster a number one priority
Transocean's Deepwater Horizon ablaze (photo, US Coast Guard)
Update 23 April 07:00 Louisiana, USA (GenevaLunch) – The oil rig that was ablaze in the Gulf of Mexico has sunk, extinguishing the fire, the US Coast Guard said late Thursday Swiss time. The Coast Guard had sent several helicopters, planes and cutters to rescue the Deepwater Horizon’s 126 person crew 21 April in the Gulf of Mexico. The blaze continued to burn, and investigators have been seeking clues to the cause of the explosion that set off the fire on the Swiss company-owned oil rig.
The air and sea search for survivors continues, reports AP. Eleven crew remain missing.
Environmental concerns are growing about the impact of the explosion on the rig, which the Los Angeles Times says was worth $600 million. US President Barack Obama says providing help for the search for missing crew members and to stem the flow of oil is a top priority. The Coast Guard says 8,000 barrels of crude oil a day may be leaking into the Gulf of Mexico.
“The environmental effect was only the latest question prompted by the disaster on the Deepwater Horizon rig, which could shape up to be one of the worst US offshore oil accidents in a generation,” according to the LA Times.
Transocean said in a statement late Thursday, “The combined response team was not able to stem the flow of hydrocarbons prior to the rig sinking, and we are working closely with BP Exploration & Production, Inc. and the US Coast Guard to determine the impact from the sinking of the rig and the plans going forward. The US Coast Guard has plans in place to mitigate any environmental impact from this situation.”
A Transocean rig off the US coast (photo ©2009 Transocean)
22 April 08:00 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – Eleven people are still missing after an oil rig blast in the Gulf of Mexico 41 miles off the coast of Louisiana late Tuesday night, Transocean, the Swiss-based company that owns the rig says. The explosion critically injured 7 of the 115 crew who were lifted to safety.
The Deepwater Horizon rig had 126 crew members on board at the time of the accident. It is owned by Transocean but BP operates the license on which the rig was drilling an exploration well.
“Transocean, BP and the US Coast Guard are actively pursuing various methods to stem the flow of hydrocarbons that appear to be fueling the fire. The rig is being monitored continually for stability. The US Coast Guard has contingency plans in the event environmental risk escalates,” according to Transocean’s Zug office.
The cause of the explosion is not yet known, but several hours after the explosion the rig was reportedly still ablaze.
Transocean moved its head office to Geneva, Switzerland in 2008. It has an office in canton Zug.
The company is the world’s largest offshore drilling company.
Links to other sites: CNN, Transocean press release, Deepwater site and BP press release
Victory! Geneva Servette Hockey Club defeats Zug, moves to finals, 5 April 2010 (photo, ©Piotr Sweck/GSHC)
Update, photo, 6 April 09: 45 Zug / Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) – GE Servette are in the final playoffs for the LNA trophy after beating Zug 2-7 in an aftern0on match on Easter Monday 5 April. The Geneva Eagles got off to a rapid start with two goals in the first three minutes and led 3-0 after nine minutes of play. GE Servette took full advantage of their power play and some poor defending. Juraj Kolnik scored four of the Geneva goals that swept Chris McSorley’s team into the finals.
GE Servette will face the powerful Bern team in the final playoffs after SC Bern beat Kloten 4-0 in their play-off series. The first game will be Saturday 10 April.
Links to other sites: GE Servette
Zug, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - GE Servette lost 2-1 to Zug after prolongations in their fourth game of the semi-finals of the ice hockey playoffs. The Zug team dominated the match before conceding a late equalizer that sent the game into extra time. They are now 2-2 in the seven-game series.
Favourites Bern strolled through their series, beating Kloten 4-0 after taking the fourth game 2-3. Bern can now relax while they wait to see whether they will meet Zug or GE Servette in the finals.
Links to other sites: TSR, Tribune de Geneve
Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Seven top executives of Foster Wheeler, a major producer of power plants and refineries, are to move from Perryville, New Jersey to Geneva, Switzerland in order to be closer to the company’s markets. The company is domiciled in Zug, Switzerland, and employs 14,000 people worldwide.
Update 12:00 Geneva, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - The gray line between freedom of speech and racism continues to be toyed with by the Swiss right-wing UDC party while municipalities in Switzerland debate whether or not to stop the group’s campaign posters for an upcoming popular vote. The 26 November referendum with three items includes one to ban the construction of new minarets in the country. The proposal is widely expected to be defeated, based on recent polls, but it could be close.
Basel-City and Lausanne have refused permission for the posters to go up, while Geneva Wednesday afternoon 7 October decided to allow them. Several cities asked the Swiss Federal Commission Against Racism for an opinion, which it issued Wednesday afternoon 7 October. Since then Winterthur, Zurich and Lucerne have decided to allow the posters, but Fribourg has banned them.
Update 27 May Lake Tuerler, Switzerland (20 Minutes, Fre) – Seventeen people were injured, one seriously, when several gas canisters at a campground midway between Zurich and Zug exploded, causing a major fire. Some of the caravans reportedly caught fire, provoking the explosions as a result. Eleven of the injured were hospitalized, according to 20 Minutes, and millions of francs in damages were caused to the caravans. Police said late Tuesday that a gas leak in one of the caravan lines appears to have caused the fire.
Zug, Switzerland (GenevaLunch) - Saturday’s game in Zug saw the home team beat GE Servette: EV Zug – GSHC 5-2 (1-1, 2-1, 2-0).
