Swiss finance boss supports immigration tax

Swiss parliamentarians have mooted a tax on foreign workers Keystone / Claudio Thoma

Partners Group co-founder Alfred Gantner is calling for Swiss companies that hire foreign workers to be taxed and for the resulting revenues to be distributed among the population as way to reform the country’s immigration system.

In an interview with Swiss paper Schweiz am Wochenende, the billionaire said that at the moment it doesn’t matter to Partners Group whether it recruits someone in Bologna, Frankfurt of Paris for the company’s office in the Swiss canton of Zug. But if companies would incur additional costs for recruiting overseas, they would have a genuine preference for Swiss talent, Gantner added.

The proposal calls for employers who hire workers from the European Union to pay an immigration tax involving up to 5% of the employee’s salary over five years. That means a company hiring an EU worker on an annual salary of CHF81,000 would be taxed around CHF20,000 over the period, Gantner said. The tax would be as low as 1% for lower salaries.

Gantner along with the other Partners Group co-founders have formed the Kompass Europa organisation, which campaigns against closer Swiss ties with the EU.

Gantner calculates the proposed tax could generate around CHF1.35 billion annually, which he wants to flow back to the population. If focused on the lowest earners, it could result in around CHF4,000 annually for a four-person household, he told the newspaper.

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