Leaving St.Gallen

I’m sorry to say that after many years in this beautiful little town I am moving on. It has been a pleasure to be able to provide this blog and I hope that people to continue to benefit from it for years to come :-). I won’t delete any content, but I’m afraid that eventually most of the information will become out of date.

But who knows. One day I might move back and I will for sure start to blog again. And thanks to everyone who followed the blog and all of the e-mails of support I received.

And if you ever decide to move to Frankfurt next, why not take a look at my new blog: www.frankfurtexpat.wordpress.com

As if I would actually stop blogging entirely 🙂

Enjoy St.Gallen!!

English-speaking tax advisor

At some point during your time in Switzerland you are going to have to fill out tax return forms. When you do it will depend on your permit status, salary level, nationality and length of your stay. Even if you speak good German, this can be confusing and it can be hard to know if you are really filling out the forms right and if you are taking advantage of all of the relevant rebates.

The best thing you can do is get a tax advisor. For filling out the tax returns forms for easy cases, this will cost only about CHF 200 each year. It will probably save you a lot more than that on your tax bill, and will save you a lot of stress.

I only know of one fluent English speaking service in St.Gallen but I am sure there must be others. However the following provide an excellent service: http://www.scriptoconsult.ch

First time in St.Gallen?

When I first came to St.Gallen, not only had I never heard of the place, I knew nothing about living in Switzerland.  My entire experience was limited to a couple of short drives through the French part to get some petrol on holiday.

So when I decided to move here a few years back, and with no local connections or friends, I contacted the only friend I could think of … google. And guess what, there was almost no help on relocating to St.Gallen!  The first point of call I would recommend to everyone though is www.englishforum.ch.  Back in the day, there were only a few hundred members, and while very few were in St.Gallen there was a wealth of generic information on moving to Switzerland.  Plus, there is always someone willing to give advice.  But you will still find that although there are many thousands of members now, most are centred on Zurich and Basel, and still information on St.Gallen is in short-supply.

So I decided to provide what I wish I had had.  A source of information for non-German speaking expats in St.Gallen.

Feel free to send comments, questions, updates or corrections!