Green light for slicing pie in canton Zurich
Startups in the Kanton of Zurich have been looking for new ways to allocate and change equity distribution of founders in tax compliant fashion. The Zurich tax authorities, the Department for Economic Affairs and Stakeholders in the Startup Ecosystem, engaged in discussions of how the vibrant startup economy can be further enhanced. For the last few years, an increasing number of startups and founders wanted to deploy the slicing pie startup dynamic equity model after when founding the company. Slicing pie is a universal, one-size-fits all model that enables to start and keep the fairest equity split - helping founders and investors to build stable and performing cofounding teams.
It is great news that the political leadership and the tax authorities encourage applications for tax rulings using the dynamic equity split model in the Canton of Zurich. Zurich based startups may benefit from the many advantages of the model as of now!
Mike Moyer, the US-based inventor of the Slicing Pie model, was pleased to hear the development “Slicing Pie is used by thousands of companies all over the world and most countries encourage fairness, but it is always nice to verify that the model will not conflict with local tax rules or have adverse tax consequences for founders who chose for this model. Everyone in a startup company deserves their fair share of the company’s success, including the government!”
“The typical fixed equity split - that has to be done latest at the incorporation of the company - has many issues. From not being able to reflect the future changes in founders commitment or contributions to poor equity recovery possibilities. As a result, many founding teams end up with an unfair equity split and - consequently - with non-performing cofounding teams” says Jana Nevrlka, founder of Cofounding, a consultancy specialised in working with founders, who also co-ordinates the development of standardised legal and tax solutions for slicing pie across Europe.
For startups, implementing the dynamic equity split based on the slicing pie method can be a game changer. We need to wait for the first tax rulings, however I am very optimistic that the slicing pie model can be implemented for startups Zurich without adverse tax consequences for the founders.” says the Swiss slicing pie tax expert, Dominik Loew.
The thank you goes to:
Department for Economic Affairs, and Department of Finance, State Councillors Carmen Walker Späh and Ernst Stocker, respectively, and the Zurich Cantonal Tax Office
Ralf Kubli , director CV VC, for his coordination of the meetings with the political representatives, his enthusiasm for the method and interest in helping startups
Jana Nevrlka, founder of Cofounding, who is behind the development of the standard shareholder agreement templates and relentlessly promoted the method in her work
Dominik Loew, founder of LOEW tax consulting who invested his ideas, time and suggested the optimal tax treatment
Karim Maizar, head of startup desk of Kellerhals and Carrard, for his input, ideas and time.
Eric Kuenzi, founder of Vujade who was the first Swiss attorney to provide his invaluable input to the shareholder agreement template
Matthias Dorner and Timo Hahn who were one of the first startups in Switzerland who enquired about how it can be implemented and started the whole journey
