It is mandatory (for men) army service. If you are found as "unfit for army" during admission, you are obliged to pay tax that amounts to min 600 chf p.a (if the young person has no fixed income) or 3% of his salary until he reaches 40y old. Essentially, you have minor health condition and you pay for this for the next 20 years.....This is one of the most unfair tax I have seen.

Based on recent experience I would say army commissions are quick to pronounce someone unfit, easy money...

The worst is that they can have their cake and eat it too.

My case: initially deemed fit to serve, did my recruit school and most of my WKs, had only a few days of service left to do. And then; "sorry, you are actually unfit to serve". And now, I get to pay the tax as if I did nothing. Ok, not really; I have a reduction because of the days of service I already did, but it's nowhere near a pro-rata rate. After the sacrifices I had to do to accomodate them, I am rather disgusted.

Is there any kind of appeal? Do they actually get the money directly (i.e. they declare you unfit = they get a bigger budget)? Do you have any kind of chance to make it up (e.g. you're unfit because your BMI exceeds some value or you can't run up a hundred steps, so you get to spend six months working on it and then they let you do your last few days)? Or the first you learn about it is the big bill end of story?

I know the army isn't meant to sound like a walk in the park, but it sounds not just unfair, but genuinely unjust.

Admittedly, I'm a bit of a special case: I have a chronic condition since my teenage years, but it was only diagnosed recently. And the decision of the army did appear with the bill. But usually, most people don't try to get in the swiss army, but rather out. The military service is not exactly popular among the young generation, and a lot of people would prefer to do an alternative service (civilian service or civil protection) to avoid the military tax. A trend in politics is to make those alternatives as unattractive as possible (from an economic perspective, or the number of days you have to servce). The army seems to have difficulties to fill their ranks (or so they claim, at least). As far as my experience goes, there aren't picky on the medical part during the recruitment. Trying to cheat the medical experts with all kind of stuff (claiming to do drugs, to be suicidal, ...) is a common way to try to avoid the military service.

A reason I'm so bitter about it is the fact that, while my condition _did_ seriously affect me during the recruit school from a physical point of view (long walks and stuff like that, but it was still undiagnosed, and the military medics at the time simply judged that I was a "simulator"), using it as a pretext to have me pay the tax now, when my militaries duties are hardly more than office work, after I struggled so much to actually overcome my disease and complete the hard part, feels... unfair.

It's noteworthy that Switzerland was called out by the ECHR (European Court of Human Rights) on the matter, judging it discriminatory[0]. Following that, a system to allow people with disabilities to candidate for the army service has been introduced[1]. I'm currently trying to be reintegrated. However, they still reserve the rights to refuse anyone for any reason. So, I guess I will see if it's real, or just a mock to please the ECHR.

[0] https://www.escr-net.org/caselaw/2012/glor-v-switzerland [1] https://www.estv.admin.ch/estv/de/home/direkte-bundessteuer/...

This sounds way worse than it is. You get exactly 50% less to pay if you did 50% of your service + you pay less long because you start to pay when you drop out instead of directly after you turn 18. Paying 18 to 40 is clearly not the same as paying 30 to 40.

Sorry, but your number are wrongs. The very _maximum_ biggest reduction you can get is 40%, and, thanks to the recently passed new law, the duration is the very same for everyone.

In hindsight, it was sloppy of me to not precise that I was speaking specifically for a private in the standard service model. For people with higher number of days to serve, it's possible to have more than 40%.

The "office hour" argument really grinds my gears.

It was originally a deliberate political decision to collaborate with neighboring air forces to save costs and work around the fact that there weren't enough pilots and material ready (again a cost issue). When this was more publicized due to some incident when the french airforce had to intervene at night, everyone acted surprised, especially political parties that keep on demanding cost reduction.

Currently, the times have been extended from 6am to 10pm, and in beginning of 2021 a 24h/365d coverage will be implemented.

But if Switzerland can't afford enough pilots and material to run a twenty-four hour airforce, does it matter that it's a cost issue that prevents them from running a 24 hour airforce? I mean, will Switzerland be running a top quality defensive air force from 2021 or will they be running two thirds of a top quality defensive air force? Is Switzerland able to afford it?

Far from defending Switzerland against the charge of running a half rate airforce, you raise legitimate concerns. If I wanted to invade a country, I probably wouldn't pick Switzerland. But if I wanted to invade Switzerland, being unable to afford an airforce in a time of wealth is awfully encouraging.

It's not "can't afford". It's "as a landlocked country surrounded by allies with whom it has extensive defence agreements, it can't justify spending the money it takes to run its airforce at full capacity."

From a financial perspective, Switzerland could definitely afford a larger military force (defence expenditure is around 0.6% of the GDP, as a comparison the NATO sets the guideline to 2% of the GDP [Note: Switzerland is not part of the NATO, but it is a useful comparison to neighboring countries]).

The question is solely political, how much money is Switzerland willing to spend for an army/airforce? And this question undoubtedly correlates with the current feeling of safety and threat of conflict.

Anyone that would be interested in invading Switzerland has to go through an aweful lot of other countries first. Or do you really believe Switzerland needs to be ready to defend against France, Germany, Italy, Austria or Lichtenstein?

There simply is currently no conceivable threat scenario that needs to be countered.

First of all, the exactly same reasoning was used after the horrors of WWI, when everyone believed another European war will never be repeated, with known results on the readiness of the Swiss Army at the beginning of WWII.

Second, conflicts are on a gradient, from scattered terrorist attacks to a full on military invasion, there is a lot in between.

The statement that there is no conceivable threat scenario is ridiculous.

So what kind of threat scenarios do you have in mind?

A few years ago, Switzerland did have a war game on a French invasion scenario.

> Currently, the times have been extended from 6am to 10pm

That should be more than enough. It's not like anybody ever launched a war at 5:45 AM…

https://en.metapedia.org/wiki/Adolf_Hitler%27s_speech_to_the...