Tuesday, April 15, 2008

Is the Wife Male or Female?

Two and a half years ago the Swiss citizens accepted the law for civil unions for The Gays™ in a referendum. I took one and a half year until the law could be exerted, because the institutions needed time to modify all those forms as they claimed (Spain needed less than a week). However, this was still not enough time to adjust tax forms, for which they had an additional year at hand.

Here in Switzerland, married couples are punished tax-wise - that is, they usually pay more taxes than singles. Of course, this unjust system has also to be applied for the The Gays™. Fair enough.

Swiss tax forms have to be filled and signed by the man/husband under his name and then the wife has to sign them as well (yes, Swiss politicians still want to keep wives close to the stove).

Well, the combination of both went terribly wrong. The good news is that the Latin part of Switzerland got it actually right. In the German speaking part, only the cantons Zug and Solothurn managed to do so. Most did nothing - that is, one of the couple has to sign as husband the other as wife.

Some software solutions did only accept husbands that are actually male - weird since civil unions are also open to lesbians and I've never heard that lesbians don't do computers.

Half way right got it Basel-Country and Aargau, which give you the option to tell whether the wife is male of female (der oder die Ehefrau).

However, only fools expect to be treated with dignity by the tax office.

[Source]

7 comments:

Mickle in NZ said...

I'd suggest confuse the taxation bods completely - change the declaration of which one is the "husband" and which is the "wife" every 3rd or 4th month to keep then on their toes...
oh dearie, dearie me most dear Gomad, one heck of a taxation system!

Mickle in NZ said...

then on their toes? them on their toes.....here I go again....

Anonymous said...

i never had to sign a tax form/declaration since i am married......but then hubby's got a guy doing it and the books of the business as well, so this might be the reason why.

I am not at all surprised at what you tell me here,my best mate is a gay guy living in their own detached home hereabouts,and the stories he told me when they went to get a mortgage etc.......

Ms Mac said...

Hmmm, I don't think I ever signed a tax form. Maybe Mr Mac forged my signature....

Watch out for that! ;-)

Mr. Urs said...

Ms. Mac: you're under Quellensteuer. You don't have to do tax forms.

Mickle in NZ said...

Here both the parties in the relationship are referred to as a "spouse" legally. Gender doesn't come into our Civil Unions, since they've been legal they are gender neutral. Tax Dept just has to put up with it. Taxation here not based on marriage or any equiv.

Now dealing with NZ social services is completely different, even when you truly qualify.....

Ms Mac said...

Oh, that's right! We *heart* Quellensteuer!