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About Medford mail tribune. (Medford, Or.) 1909-1989 | View Entire Issue (May 7, 1961)
Deborah Kerr and hubby Peter Vierlei are among the famous personalities who make their home in the picturesque Alps. of them sovereign states, roughly on the American model, but each with its own tax structure. An actor, seeking Swiss residence, first approaches the tax officials of each canton in turn to see which offers the best deal. Noel Cow ard, for example,- made a deal with the Canton of Vaud whereby he is taxed at 5 percent of the rentable value of his property. - All the deals are different, and all personal. One top star, who asked to be numbered like his bank account rather than named, told me: "The authorities expect a certain amount of horse-trading. This means that you have to have enough money to make it worth while for them to come to terms, otherwise they will just laugh in your face. , "They offer you a tax arrangement. You turn it down as excessive. Eventually my own arrangement was ham mered down to this: I pay in Swiss taxes a flat $2,000 a year, whether I make a million or nothing. The Ameri can Government knows all about it, and doesn't like it, but there is a tax agreement between the United States and Switzerland, so as long as the deal satisfies the Swiss, the U.S. is bound to respect it." " Swiss Proud, British Furious The system, happy as it is for the stars themselves, has created some curious anomalies for the governments con cerned. The country least affected by it, Britain, is f uri- ous about it. The country least flattered, Switzerland, preens itself .with pride at the system. The loss to America is considerable. At a rough esti mate, the gross annual income of Alfred Hitchcock, Wil liam Holden, Yul Brynner, and the Mel Ferrers alone is in the neighborhood of $4,000,000. The income of the entire American movie colony in Switzerland is almost incalculable, certainly running into nine figures. The situation has attracted the attention of the Kennedy Ad ministration, and one of these days the Government may put a plug in this tax drain. England has watched the departure of such stars as Richard Burton, Noel Coward, and Peter Ustinov in a foaming froth of patriotic anger. All three have long since ceased to be strictly British stars. The bulk of their income is American, and the loss falls on the American rather than the British taxpayer, but the stars have to endure heavy attacks in the British press. Peter Ustinov replies, "By the logic of the English papers, every British ambassador is a traitor for living abroad. -So is Somerset Maugham. I am going to Swit zerland," he adds gloomily, "because I work better there. r In Switzerland there is nothing else to do." And Noel Coward says simply, "It was either Switzer land or bankruptcy for me." Neither of these remarks indicates any burning love for the adopted country. The fact is that, although Lau sanne is very proud of its Hollywood colony, the colony (Continued on page 12) f ink Switzerland is a wonderful place to live especially for tax purposes family Widely, May 7, INI
