Zurich tax data reveal gigantic fluctuations

City of Zurich (Image: Henrique Ferreira / unsplash)

From 2002 to 2018, the number of taxpayers in the city of Zurich increased by almost 10 percent. A new study shows the increase in a very specific group of people.

The Zurich ‘Tages-Anzeiger’ has published an article on an as yet unpublished analysis by the City of Zurich’s tax office, which deals with the development of taxpayers between 2002 and 2018. The first thing that stands out is that the number of taxpayers has increased by 9.6 percent; however, tax revenue increased by around 42 percent.

The median taxable income, i.e. the value that lies exactly in the middle of the data distribution, increased from around CHF 35,000 to CHF 44,800 (+28%). The median wealth for unmarried people increased from CHF 24,000 to CHF 34,000 (+42%) and that for married people increased from CHF 92,000 to CHF 162,000 (+76%).

More wealthy

The number of people earning taxable income between CHF 20,000 and CHF 59,900 fell from 105,952 to 97,306 (-8.2%). On the other hand, that value for the income bracket from 60,000 to 149,900 francs rose from 64,746 to 85,143 people (+31.5%) in the period under review. The number of taxpayers of over CHF 150,000 even increased from 9,309 to 19,109, i.e. by 105.3%. After all, the latter corresponds to around 7 percent of all taxpayers, the paper continued.

The proportion that paid tax for less than CHF 20,000 remained constant at around 23%. This category mainly included students, it was said as an explanation. What is also exciting about the data is that around half of the resident population of around 420,000 people apparently has no taxable income at all.

Shift in age groups

In this context, it is also interesting to compare the age pyramid of the city of Zurich with the tax data. If you click on the official graphic and change between the years between 2000, 2010 and 2021, it is impressive to see that there are far fewer senior citizens in the city on the Limmat, but significantly more 30-year-olds. And it is precisely this group of people who are known to be in the prime of their lifetime income.

08-09.08.2022/kut/ena.

Zurich tax data reveal gigantic fluctuations

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