Median Wage

The 2021 withholding tax reform now provides for rate-determining value calculation with the median wage taken into account. With this construct, all employees with very little employment information should also be taxed as fairly as possible.

 

For the median wage to be used for rate determination, the following conditions must be met cumulatively:

the person is a Income tax payer

the person has multiple occupations

a level of employment cannot be determined for any of the occupations

total level of employment is unknown

total gross income is unknown

 

The tool in our FAQ income taxRate-determining income will also help you with the median wage if the questions have been answered accordingly.

If all these conditions are met, the so-called median wage is used for the rate-determining value. It corresponds to an ‘average wage’. Each canton provides this value every year along with the withholding tax rate. The wage subject to withholding tax remains unchanged; the value is only used to determine the rate. Unlike the values actually billed for a calculable total level of employment, you do not see the median wage value in wage items.

If gross income in a month is higher than the median wage, the rate table percentage is applied. If gross income is lower, the percentage based on the median wage is applied.

 

Enter the person as withholding tax payer with the regular applicable rate information as well as ‘yes’ and 0% for other known income sources. Additionally enable the median wage IT category.

 

NOTE
The median wage is not taken into account correctly for persons who have assigned the hourly wage code. Basically, a level of employment can be calculated for hourly wage earners and the assignment of the median wage IT category should hardly be considered for them. If this is currently the case, please enter the percentage in the ‘Fixed IT rate’ field in the ‘Income tax’ tab of the Employee card. This shall only apply if the billed wage is lower than the median wage. If the wage paid is higher, remove this value. Currently, this check must be carried out manually.