Incompetence can be expensive: losses representing 5% of the payroll in a company of 50 employees

A company of about 50 employees which entrusted the management of its salaries to a “fiduciary” accounting office (not a member of the industry’s professional associations) had to recognise a significant loss following an OASI control.

Since the term “trustee” is not protected in Switzerland, no minimum training is required to appoint a “trustee” office. Only membership in a professional association (Fiduciaire | Suisse or EXPERTSuisse) provides a guarantee of professional knowledge acquired through adequate initial and continuing training.

Unfortunately for this company, the external salary manager did not have sufficient professional training and did not treat salaries properly.

Following an AVS check-in (every 5 years), the company had the unpleasant surprise of a large contribution catch-up over the last 5 years. Realizing that the salary manager was not up to par, the company commissioned a Payroll Check-up to assess the extent of the situation.

Significant issues have been identified, such as lump sum fees paid without approval by tax authorities and gifts to employees incorrectly excluded from the payroll tax calculation. Unfortunately, the tax at source was also not calculated and reported correctly.

It was too late to expect to recover the social security and income tax amounts from employees who had left the company in the last five years. These amounts therefore had to be written off. However, the Payroll Checkup made it possible to correct the situation for the employees still in office and thus avoid additional losses of the order of 4% of the payroll.