I’m self-employed and work for a US client as contractor. But in Switzerland my status is “employed by foreign company without office in Switzerland”. So no one except LPP wants to deal with my second pillar.
I wonder if someone know another option for me and if their service/portfolio management is any better.
Have you considered contributing to a large pillar 3a (up to 20% of AHV net income / 35k) instead of pillar 2?
5 Likes
If you’re a contractor (1099) vs US employee (W-2) why aren’t you sending invoices as a self-employed business, or through a LLC (GmbH/Sarl) ?
Because in Switzerland, he isn’t considered strictly as self employed, see his original message.
Swiss authorities will hardly recognized the self employed activity if he is only billing one company.
If he were to bill through an LLC this would be just fine.
If he had registered a sole proprietorship he could manufacture some marketing expenses, look for more clients (it’s what contractors do, after all), and have two three leads / prospective clients.
Which is why I’m asking him not you.
LLC has a major drawback: capital gain. Since my bonus is in traded instruments, this capital gain might be significantly larger than any benefits I could achieve from using LLC.
Swiss law specifies that one considered to be self-employed iff he/she has at least 3 different clients in Switzerland during the year. My interpretation of this weird definition is that self-employed form is designed for professionals like hairdresser who have a lot of swiss clients and relatively small earnings. And their idea is that I should have opened LLC which seems to be very different than what I think is common in US.
I don’t want to pay any pillar but since I have to, I would like to be able to select where to invest at least. But the only company which works for me for 2nd pillar is this “stiftung auffangeinrichtung bvg” since others (AXA, SwissLife, etc) don’t want to work with me because I work for American company (why?) or because they work only with companies.
Investing in 3rd pillar will add additional expenses on my side with unclear benefit because money on pillars are less liquid.
Are you sure? Isn’t pillar 2 only required for ANobAG if the employer is in the EU/EFTA?
«Echte» ANOBAG (Arbeitnehmende mit Arbeitgebern ausserhalb EU/EFTA) dagegen sind nicht BVG-pflichtig
https://pensexpert.ch/artikel/anobag
I don’t have personal experience as ANobAG, though, so I can’t confirm.
The tax benefits of pillar 3a are often worth it, if you don’t need access to the money anytime soon (outside of the official reasons for pillar 3a withdrawal).
I voluntarily contribute to a large pillar 3a instead of pillar 2, but I’m registered as self-employed, not ANobAG.
Are you sure? Isn’t pillar 2 only required for ANobAG if the employer is in the EU/EFTA?
Good question, I have a tax advisor who fills in all the forms for me so he thinks that I should pay this 2nd pillar. Need to consult with him, maybe he decided that it is good idea to reduce the taxable income.
I voluntarily contribute to a large pillar 3a instead of pillar 2, but I’m registered as self-employed, not ANobAG.
But can you take back 3rd pillar if not for buying house? I thought the max size of 3rd pillar is 12k per year.
There aren’t many other situations where you can withdraw your pillar 3a before retirement. However, I anyway need money after reaching the retirement age, so I take advantage of the tax savings by paying into pillar 3a.
The maximum for people with a pillar 2 is 7k a year. However, if you don’t have a pillar 2, the maximum is 20% of your AHV net income, capped at 35k a year.
You can also open a pillar 3a and contribute less than the maximum, of course, in case you would otherwise not have enough money before reaching the retirement age.
2 Likes
Knowing the term “anobag” allowed me to find Liberty | Liberty - Your partner for private and occupational benefits . Maybe they have some products for anobags so that I can move my pension there.
is the tax implications for 3rd and 2nd pillars contributions are the same? My understanding is that I don’t pay social taxes and income taxes on the pension contributions.
The maximum for people with a pillar 2 is 7k a year.
Do you mean 7k monthly pension? Regardless of the total sum on the pension account?
Contributions to 3a and 2 are tax-privileged, yes.
They mean pillar 3a, there’s not much of a limit on pillar 2 contributions - except it’ll be impossible to insure salaries above 882k/yr.
in this case, why can’t i put as much as possible to 2nd pillar to take it later to buy a house?
You can (tho will need to wait a few years after any buyin to keep the tax benefits)
Now I understood what did you mean: I could have contributed to 3a pillar due to my status of anobag instead of voluntarily registering for 2nd pillar [1]. In this case I would have a flexibility to choose among many 3rd pillar providers and not limited to governmental. But since my accountant already registered me for 2nd pillar, it looks like it is hard to change.
I was in a situation of Anobag and it finished to be a nightmare.
At the end after two years of having the AHV chasing me about the accident insurance I decided to make a GmbH.
There are many advantage:
You can chose where you contribute to AHV and avoid the 5% fees taken by most cantonal office of AHV.
You have no problem to get an insurance against accident.
You will end up having a contract with AXA or such a company for second pillar but you have the choice of the plan and can decide if you want to contribute a minimum.
You are not free to chose any institution for your second pillar, most interesting institution will simply never reply to you 
This is important! I didn’t know, it could have saved me a lot of money. I don’t know what is inside of this charge but if it is charge for checking my tax payment, it sounds ridiculous to ask for 5% (the total social tax payment is ~13% and more than 1/3 is service tax?).
It is 5% of 13% in fact 0.65% of the salary. But almost as high than the insurance against accident.